


The Island Without A Teleportato

by Lady_With_A_Top_Hat



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Torture, F/F, F/M, Multi, Nobody can age, Puppy Love, References to Suicide, There is magical pocket space, Wendy tends to cry a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 66,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23511445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_With_A_Top_Hat/pseuds/Lady_With_A_Top_Hat
Summary: Wendy and Abigail Carter had grown accustomed to surviving in a harsh wilderness filled with horrid creatures and the wretched unending feeling of hunger. Each and every day they anticipated Wendy’s inevitable demise that was always accompanied by a revival on another terrible island that only deviated slightly from all of the other isles in the constant. Day by day the twins would rely on the assistance of a divining rod as their guide to various things that would allow them to escape their current island and be forced onto a new one, simply for the sake of their eternal search for something-or someone that the pair had so miserably lost long ago.Everything changed the day when Wendy found herself standing in the shadow of the Florid Postern.
Relationships: Webber/Wendy (Don't Starve)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1 - The Florid Postern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, so I'm just gonna warn everybody that's reading this that there's a LOT of filler chapters in this fanfic, most of my chapters don't actually add to the story's plot whatsoever. I have various reasons behind doing this, and I ain't gonna list them, but, you, the reader, should keep in mind that you don't have to go through every chapter of this fanfic. If you actually enjoy my filler chapters then go ahead and read them, but a lot of these early-on filler chapters are rather boring ( in my opinion, at least ). In every chapter's summary note slide, I will give a brief answer about whether it's a necessary chapter to read or not, so, if I warn you that it's a filler chapter, you don't need to read it to understand future chapters. Also, this isn't a filler chapter, if you're interested in this fanfic then I strongly suggest that you read this chapter.
> 
> -This summary was created on the 13th of June ( so I've written this summary by the time I've released chapter seven ).

Please read this chapter's summary :).

Wendy frowned. That, of course, was normal, however the thing in front of her certainly wasn’t normal. It was difficult to describe, the structure was composed of two stone pillars, from the tops of these pillars, inky flames erupted. Between these pillars was a sort-of arch, and in the center of this arch was an eye.

This eye was unblinking, it stared at Wendy as though she was the most interesting thing in the area. So, Wendy stared back. She was tempted to throw her tentacle spike at it, and put it out of its misery, but after some wrestling with the idea in her head, Wendy decided to let it suffer. Her attention again fell on describing the pillar-arch-eyeball-thing.

Beneath the two pillars holding the arch up were thorny roses who’s barbed vines snaked up the pillars. Wendy couldn’t decide whether these vines helped keep the thing from collapsing, or if their squeezes helped to further destroy its already cracked pillars.

Wendy tore her eyes away from it, and thought about how she got here. After a few seconds, she remembered what had previously occurred.

Wendy had been placing the ring thing on the wooden thing. The box thing, the crank thing, and the metal potato thing had already been placed upon the wooden thing, and with the addition of the ring thing, the Teleportato was complete. However, something strange and unexpected happened. Wendy had made the Teleportato thousands of times before, and each time she did, the repulsive head of the evil tall man would show up. Wendy and the evil tall man would berate one another with insults, and, after a while, Wendy would finally ask him if she could leave her island and show up in a new one. He always complained about it being so annoying to have to transfer her to a brand new island every five days or so, but he always complied with her request. However, this time she activated the Teleportato, something abnormal happened, instead of the evil tall man’s head showing up, it was the head of a woman. Wendy was confused by this inconsistency, but before she could utter a word, inky shadow hands emerged from the ground, and dragged her into the floor.

Wendy looked back at the pillar-arch-eyeball-rose-thing. Was it a portal of some sort? After all, it had brought her to a new island, and it was in the shape of a portal. Wendy stared at it a bit longer. Maybe it was a portal, maybe it wasn’t, but what Wendy did know, was that she didn’t care that much about determining the answer.

Wendy reached into her pockets and pulled out a handful gears, some globs of nightmare fuel, and a single stick. Then, she paused, for some reason she couldn’t remember how to make a divining rod out of these materials. It was as though she had died and had been brought back to life, having to start from scratch again, on another island, with no memory of any of the more advanced crafting recipes. Perhaps she would have to create an alchemy engine again in order for her to create the divining rod. Then, she realized something.

Why could she still recall how to make the alchemy engine if she couldn’t remember how to make the divining rod?

The question bounced around in her head for a while, but she had no answer for it. Wendy shoved the materials back into her pockets. Then, she internally debated over if making the alchemy engine was worth the trouble. She decided that it was not, she could simply search for the objects required to create the Teleportato, if she got to the next island and this problem persisted, then she would make an alchemy engine.

Wendy decided that the best way to look for the materials required to create the Teleportato would be to traverse near the shoreline, this way she could scout out the area, and have a basic outline of what the island looked like, and if she happened to accidentally loose her balance and fall into the sea, then that would kill her, and Wendy wasn’t at all adverse to the idea of dying.

While she travelled, Wendy held her hand out next to her, like she was holding someone’s hand. Of course, no one was holding her hand back, she just liked to pretend that Abigail was holding her hand, it made Wendy feel a little less lonely. She only did this when Abigail was resting. Wendy reached into her pocket and brought out Abigail’s flower. Abigail’s flower wasn’t ready yet, it was not completely red nor was it entirely open. Wendy looked fondly at the braided silk bracelet that encircled Abigail’s flower then she looked at the silk bracelet on her own wrist. They brought back happier memories.

After a while of traveling by the shoreline, Wendy realized something odd, it was cold. Not freezing-to-death cold, no, more like suspiciously chilly. In early spring this was normal, after all, it did come right after winter, but Wendy could tell that she was obviously not in spring, she was in autumn. Normally, upon entering a world, one would start on the first day of either spring or autumn. In the first days of autumn it was supposed to be warm, this is due to autumn following right after summer. Only when you’ve spent a couple of days in the season of autumn do you start to feel a comfortable middle-ground between hot and cold temperatures. If you're cold during autumn it can mean only two things: you were shoving ice in your mouth or/and you’re approaching the end of autumn. Wendy definitely knew that she wasn’t doing the former, so she must’ve been nearing autumns departure, this meant that winter was soon to come. This puzzled the young child. Why did she arrive on this island on a later day than she usually did?

If her theory was correct and she was approaching winter then that was a problem. Wendy had no base, she hadn’t any winter gear, and she had never survived winter, nor had she ever attempted to survive it.

She supposed that she would freeze to death on this new island. What a shame.

She pulled some berries out of her pockets and started plopping them into her mouth. She had been collecting some of these small, red, fruits whilst she had been traveling through the island. Oddly enough, many of the berry bushes that she’d discovered looked completely barren of any sort of berries. She related it to how her life was almost completely barren of joy.

Wendy shrugged, the gobblers must’ve been hard at work.

Stupid gobblers.

While Wendy ate her snack she thought about her divining rod. The more she pondered about it the more the question kept popping up: why couldn’t she remember how to make it? Then, another question came to mind: did she forget anything else that was important? Her mind raced to her torch, and with a sigh of disappointment, Wendy realized that she could still remember how to make it, there was no excuse for her not to survive the night.

For the last half of an hour Wendy examined her state of memory. She discovered three things: some of the crating recipes had changed, there was some things that she could no longer remember how to make, and there was new stuff that she somehow already knew how to create. Among these new crafts where: a whirly fan, a flare, and a strange thing called a tell-tale heart. Wendy was interested by the tell-tale heart. What was it? Was it a heart replacer of some sort? Then her mind told her this: _Ghastly revival of a ghostly friend._

Wendy quickly reached into her pocket and brought out Abigail’s flower, and of course, the woven silk bracelet that was placed around it. On Wendy’s last island, Abigail met her demise by some killer bees. Luckily, Abigail seemed fully recovered from the incident, her spirit now looked to be at its strongest. Hope made its way onto Wendy’s face. If she could make this tell-tale heart than she might be able to revive Abigail. She might be able to join her sister. It wouldn’t be able to end either of their sufferings, far from it, but it would definitely make them happier.

First off, Wendy knew that she would need to gather the materials needed to create the heart. Apparently the materials were three tufts of grass, a spider gland, and a fairly large amount of blood. She already had three tufts of grass, the next thing she would need to get was a spider gland. Wendy gave out a heavy and extra-sad sigh. She was very fond of spiders, and for personal, secret, reasons, she hated killing them. Alas, Wendy would kill nearly all of the spiders in the world if she could be reunited with her twin.

Wendy recalled passing a tier-two spider den somewhere not too far from where she was eating. She shoved the remaining berries into her mouth and ran towards the direction where the mass of silk was located.

The wind passed through her short hair as she ran. It was easier to survive when she wasn’t limited by her formerly long locks. Her dirt covered Mary Janes dug into the ground propelling her forwards. Her shoes, her socks, and the bottom half of her legs were caked in mud, dirt, and blood. Wendy stopped caring about her hygiene a long time ago, bathing just wasted time. Sewing did too. Wendy knew how to sew, but it was just such a long, tedious, task, and she could easily put up with her clothes being tattered and torn.

There was only one part of Wendy’s body which was kept clean and well-cared for, and that was her right wrist, upon that wrist was a bracelet made of braided pieces of silk, one chunk was of undyed webbing, another piece of the webbed bracelet was colored in Wendy’s crimson blood, and the last silk strand was dyed in an odd mixture of purple and red blood. It was the same bracelet found on Abigail’s flower. And, other than Abigail’s blossom, these bracelets were their most treasured processions.

But, besides her right wrist, the rest of her body was very dirty. It made Wendy appear to be a wild-child, she looked as though she was some feral kid. It didn’t help matters that Wendy had placed a crow’s skull onto the flower on the side of her head, neither did it help by her wearing a necklace made out of bones around her neck. But, the morbid young girl liked the look of wearing dead things.

Eventually, Wendy arrived at the tier-three spider den. Since it was dusk, there was spiders roaming freely around. Just like her, they seemed to be comfortable with the dark. She noticed one spider who went fairly far from the spider den. It was hissing at, and chasing, a nearby bird.

Wendy sighed, she couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor creature, if only the recipe had required frog legs or Glommer’s wings, then Wendy wouldn’t be averse to a crime such as murder. Suddenly, she realized it, the evil tall man must’ve given her this recipe specifically so that she would have to kill a spider, or multiple depending on her terrible luck.

What a jerk.

At least he had finally told her how truly revive Abigail, Wendy might’ve found a way to bring souls back to the realm of the living. But to bring back a soul’s body? No, she had never learned how to do that, but the evil tall man had. It was his own awful little way of making Wendy suffer for eternity.

Wendy held her siblings flower close to her face and whispered “I need your help, Abigail.”

Then, Wendy gently tossed the blossom into the air. The petals gently tugged themselves apart, and a spirit rose from the ground. The gentle, red, petals fell towards Wendy’s palms and formed a beautiful red flower. The morbid child turned to her ghostly sister and gave her a slight smile.

“Soon, you may be joining me in the realm of the living, my dear sister”

Abigail blinked in surprise, then very cheerfully twirled in circles.

“Unfortunately” Wendy sighed and motioned towards the innocent young arachnid nearby “your life requires a sacrifice.”

Wendy snuck up behind the unsuspecting victim. She raised her tentacle spike, and like a meteorite slamming into the moon, she brought her weapon down harshly onto the spider’s skull. Even though the young girl heard a squelching noise, the creature was still very obviously alive, however, it looked stunned. Suddenly, a large gash appeared on the spider’s body, causing the poor arachnid to hiss in pain. It looked as though an invisible sword had sliced through its flesh, but Wendy new better, she knew that her sister was the source of the painful wound. Wendy raised her weapon to deal the final, killing, blow, when she suddenly shrieked in surprise.

A warrior spider had jumped onto her back pack, the force of it landing onto Wendy made her off balanced, and nearly caused her to fall onto the ground. Suddenly, Wendy’s situation became a whole lot worse. She felt fangs pushing into her back at the the spot right between her shoulder blades. The pain hadn’t settled in yet, but Wendy had no doubt that the wound would make her feel horrid in a few moments. Wendy thrust her tentacle spike towards the spider like she was using a back scratcher. She definitely hit it, she could hear the spider hiss in pain, but it refused to break off from her back. Abigail floated towards the dangerous arachnid, and ghostly slash marks quickly appeared on the spider. Out of the corner of her eye, Wendy noticed a fluffy black spider near her leg. She didn’t skip a beat. As though she was swinging a baseball bat, Wendy swung her weapon at the already injured arachnid. The spikes made impact with its flesh, and it skitted into a nearby pine tree, leaving a smeared trail of purple blood behind it on the grass. It was more than enough of an impact to put an end to the poor arachnid.

Abigail continued to attack the warrior spider on Wendy’s back. Wendy mercilessly shoved her tentacle spike towards it, and after a few more hits from her tentacle spike, the warrior spider was dead. Wendy painfully sat down and reached behind her towards her dead foe. She managed to heave it off of her shoulders, and unroot its teeth from her flesh. Suddenly, it began to rain. The water stung Wendy fresh, unbandaged wound, but it was just a small addition of pain to the dreadful mountain of agony that Wendy was now experiencing. Wendy wanted to scream, but she held it back, if she let out any loud noises, then the other spiders might hear her and come over to investigate. Luckily, Wendy had years of experience in the constant regarding repressing pain. Wendy gently placed her hand behind her back, and then she brought said hand in front of her face. It looked like she had stuck her hand into a can of crimson paint.

Wendy sighed, she would have more than enough time to craft the tell-tale heart, however she became certain that her wound would be the death of her.

The blood covered little girl dragged the warrior spider's corpse over to her. She reached into her red skirt pocket, and retrieved a piece of flint from its depths. Wendy hoped that this spider was going to have a big enough spider gland for the heart. She knew that if it had a small, wrinkled, spider gland then it would either be filled with a good portion of monster meat or it would have a large amount of silk stored in its torso/head. She dug her sharp mineral into underbelly of the arachnid, and like a cat’s claws ripping through fabric, Wendy tore open the stomach of the monster. She sighed in relief as she saw a slimy, light purple, oozing, slug-like, spider gland. She let her fingers wrap around it, and she violently ripped it away from the creature’s flesh. Purple blood splattered everywhere, staining Wendy’s already dirt and blood covered clothes as a little memento of the carnage.

She reached into her pockets, and removed three tufts of grass from its contents, and she proceeded to lay them on her lap. Then, Wendy took the spider gland in her right hand and held it onto her new, most likely fatal, injury. With her left, dominant, hand, she squeezed and scratched her already bleeding wound, causing it to bleed even more onto the spider gland. Wendy could barely contain her screams of agony, but she continued to do this for about a minute or two more. When she was finished, she took the blood covered spider gland and wrapped the three tufts of grass around it. The grass wrapped neatly around the gland, monstrous purple and crimson red blood dripped onto the tufts that were squeezing it, the tell-tale heart looked like a tie dye t-shirt that somebody had soaked too much dye on and had placed too many rubber bands around.

Abigail stared at her sibling in horror, so Wendy decided to comfort her sister “don’t worry Abby, in the end, my pain doesn’t matter, and very soon, we can be together again.” Wendy eerily smiled “we can play with each other again, and hold hands, and hug, it’ll be great, just you see.”

Wendy staggered upwards, but fell onto the floor as she tried, she was getting far too weak and light headed for comfort. Abigail hovered down to her sister’s level, and allowed Wendy to shove the bloody spider gland into her ghostly chest.

Nothing happened.

Wendy frowned “m-maybe I’m not doing it right…”

Nevertheless, she tried shoving it into Abigail’s wispy form once again.

Nothing changed.

“No” Wendy whispered, her weak voice was drowned out by the pouring rain.

She looked down at the tell-tale heart in her grasp.

“It was a prank.”

Wendy didn’t know whether the rain was just moistening her cheeks or if the sudden droplets on them were from her own eyes, she suspected both.

“All of this was just the evil tall man’s sick joke.”

Wendy looked back up to face her sibling. Abigail could see that Wendy’s eyes were red and puffy.

“What did we do to deserve this fate?”

Wendy’s soaked clothes hung to her figure most creepily, making her look like a skeleton whose attire had yet to rot away.

“You died too early, and I just made your ghostly form visible.”

The blood from Wendy’s wound bled through her white, puffy-sleeved, shirt, staining the back of it a crimson color.

“We don’t deserve to suffer eternally through this unescapable hell of a place.”

Half of the sun was visible on the horizon, yet it provided them with no sunset in the constant’s dreary gray sky.

“Why won’t he let me stay peacefully dead and join you in being a spirit?”

The tell-tale heart creepily beated in her grip as though it was a real organ.

“Or, he could've at least let us suffer through this torment hand-in-hand.”

So much tear droplets were welling up in Wendy’s eyes that Abigail looked like a fuzzy blur of white light.

“Why can’t that malicious man just let us be together again?”

Spiders skittered around in the distance, wandering around aimlessly for any signs of prey, completely unaware of the twins hidden in the forest pines.

“It’s not like he can’t make that happen.”

Wendy unclasped her fingers around the tell-tale heart, letting it fall onto the grassy ground with a thud. Wendy struggled, but she weakly managed to press two fingers onto a blue vein on her other arm. She could feel a dangerously slow beat coming from it, and said beat seemed to gradually be growing slower.

“OooOooOo?”

Wendy looked up at her ghostly sister, lightly nodded, and said “Yes, I’m going to die quite soon.”

Abigail’s eyes grew panicked and even more sorrowful.

Wendy began to slump down onto the soaked ground, her eyes looked heavy and sleepy as though she was a young child who needed to go to bed soon.

Wendy managed to whisper “I love you, my dear sister” before shutting her eyes and drifting off into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this story, it's my first FanFiction and I derive lots of joy from writing it. Chapter two is by far my shortest chapter out of the eighteen that I've written so far, so I plan to release it on Friday, it will be accompanied by the third chapter on Monday. Please expect most of the chapters to be posted on Monday unless I specifically state otherwise [ edit: please note that I no longer have a scheduled day for uploading chapters. Updates are random and are entirely based on how much time I've got and how much I desire to write ]. Also, I want you to know that you're loved, appreciated, and wonderful in your own unique way. And, I hope you have a good rest of your day ( oh my goodness, that rhymed, ain't that nice ). 
> 
> Bye-Bye!


	2. Chapter 2 - Meatballs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a necessary chapter to read, albeit its not that good.

Wendy slowly opened her eyes. A twinkling landscape of stars lied before her. Sometimes, Wendy pondered if one of the twinkling things up there was her old world. Occasionally, looking up at the stars made Wendy feel insignificant, like her troubles and her pain meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Perhaps, there was another world out there in that inky nothingness with another depressed girl who had lost her identical twin. Maybe, that twin was also looking at space and wondering about why life was so cruel and unrewarding. Possibly, there was a noose around her neck and a nearby toppled over stool. That girl could be experiencing her last day alive, whilst she stared out at the vast ocean of planets and stars filled with other beings who sang a woeful chorus of pain and anguish. 

As mildly entertaining as stargazing was, Wendy knew that she needed to figure out why she had woken up seeing the pitch blackness of space rather than seeing the light blueness of the morning sky.

Wendy was aware that the evil tall man wasn’t standing over her and warning her about how she should find some food before the days conclusion. Also, there was no way she could’ve naturally healed from the injuries dealt to her by the now deceased warrior spider. If she was to survive something like that, then she would’ve needed good medicinal care, something which she certainly hadn’t given herself.

Then, why was she still alive?

A familiar scent wafted into her nose, it was the smell of campfire smoke. That didn’t make any sense, she wasn’t near any pig torches when she-.

Suddenly, it hit Wendy, this was the work of another being who had been given a one-way ticket into the constant.

The morbid girl gently turned her head in the direction of the tell-tale scent. 

Wendy could see a young woman sitting on a log near a fire pit, she looked to be in her early twenties. She had a long pointed nose, and naturally pursed lips. She had flat eyebrows which undoubtedly made it easier for someone to read her facial expression. Her hair was a charcoal black, and despite her age, she had pretty, curled-up, pigtails. She wore a red, long-sleeved, shirt, with a collar pocking out at her neckline. This was paired with an elegant black skirt that fell just a tad bit past her knees. Also, she wore black tights and black high-heeled boots. All in all, she had a good looking ensemble. 

Currently, this mysterious woman was having a whispery, obviously one-sided, conversation with Abigail. However, this chat was cut short, as Wendy’s ghostly twin seemed to notice that she was staring at the two of them. Abigail floated towards her sister and hovered over her head.

The young lady in pigtails stood up from her log and whispered “Hello! My name’s Willow, what’s your name?”

In Wendy’s typical sorrowful voice she responded quietly, matching Willow’s low volume of voice “names are just ways to pretend that you have individuality and that you stand out and actually matter.”

Willow didn’t seem to know how to react to Wendy’s statement “Ummm…it would still be nice to call you something other than ‘unconscious kid’.”

Wendy sighed and whispered “you may call me Wendy” then, she looked up at her sister “and my twin’s name is Abigail, but you can just call her Abby if you so desire.”

Willow nodded and whispered “ok, Wendy, well, I’m gonna go get ya some meatballs.”

“Meatballs?” Wendy quietly questioned.

She looked back up at her twin. Abigail cheerfully spun around in a circle, her red flower bounced gently with her ghostly form. 

Wendy was pleased to see her sibling so blissful, Abigail had always been a happy go lucky person in life, and it was touching knowing that even in death Abigail retained such a desirable quality.

Then, Willow came into view and plopped a plate of brown spheres next to Wendy “I know that its not what people usually wake up to, but I didn’t know how long you had gone without a meal, so you can have dinner for breakfast.”

Wendy squinted in distrust at the strange food and quietly asked “what are ‘meatballs’?”

Willow looked confused, but suddenly, her eyes widened “wait a second, you’ve never used the crockpot before, have you?”

“No, I’ve never bothered to build one before” Wendy whispered.

Willow quietly said “You’ve been missing out. Crockpots let you shove some ingredients into them, and based on those ingredients, it'll cook food for you.”

“Oh” Wendy quietly said as she tried to sit up without injuring the now bandaged wound on her back, the little girl wasn’t successful as a look of pain formed on her face.

“Let me help you” Willow whispered as she began to gently lift Wendy up into a sitting position.

Willow successfully managed to pull the young girl up into a criss-cross-applesauce formation onto her straw roll without injuring her.

“Okay, now eat some meatballs” Willow softly instructed.

Wendy reached for the meatballs, but then she halted. A look of distrust was painted across her face.

At first, Willow looked confused, but then her eyes lit up in understandment. She picked up a meatball, and whispered “the meatballs aren’t poisoned, or deadly, or anything like that. They’re perfectly safe.”

Wendy wanted to retort back with the truth that nothing was perfectly safe, but Willow was still actively speaking.

With a mouth full of food, the youthful adult attempted to whisper, and said “I wouln’t bay atin’ dif if it waf danjerus.”

It was difficult to understand someone when they were chewing food and whispering at the same time, but Wendy got the idea: the meatballs were safe. The young child picked one up, they were surprisingly large, she bit into it. It tasted like regular, cooked, meat. 

Wendy finished chewing her bite of food and looked over at Willow “so, why didn’t death’s kind hand take me?”

Willow pointed at another survivor who was sleeping on the ground rather than on a straw roll.

“The man over there’s name is Wilson, he stumbled across you, and luckily had some medical equipment on hand. After that, he brought you back to our base” Willow quietly explained.

Wendy hadn’t realized that there was a fourth person amongst them “so _that’s_ why we’ve been whispering.”

Willow gave a light chuckle “yea.”

After Wendy finished the rest of her meatballs, the pair started to converse once more.

“So, now that I know your names, how old are the two of you?” Willow asked, looking at Wendy expectantly.

Wendy whispered “I’m ten, however my dear sister departed when she was nine.”

Willow let out a heavy sigh “children as young as you two shouldn’t be forced to survive in this awful world.”

Wendy quietly responded “we shouldn’t be forced to, but it’s not like morality ever rules over cruelty.”

Willow whispered “you are really sad for a ten year old, you know that?”

Wendy nodded “yes, but can you blame me?”

After a few moments of thought, Willow whispered “no, I cannot.”

Wendy scanned her surroundings. The base that she found herself in had an alchemy engine, a few chests, two crock pots, an ice box, a bird cage with a pretty red bird inside of it, a lightning rod, a chest dog and of course, its eye bone, a lit fire pit, some logs around said pit, some drying racks and farms in the distance, some wood walls surrounding the base, and her backpack, which was conveniently sitting next to her. Willow’s base was quite impressive, especially to someone who had never built a base before.

Wendy looked back at Willow, she was now holding a teddy bear in her hands. The poor bear looked fairly worn out, it was covered in burn marks, one of its button eyes was missing, and both its left ear and its right shoulder had stuffing pouring out of the fabric like blood from a wound.

Willow noticed that Wendy was looking at her stuffed friend and whispered “his name’s Bernie.”

“That’s a pleasant name” Wendy responded. Then, she quietly asked “is the Teleportato on this island activated and ready to use? Or have you and Wilson yet to find all of its components?”

“Do you need the Teleportato for a specific reason?” Willow nervously asked, hoping Wendy was just engaging in small talk.

“Yes, I need to get off of this island and move onto the next one” Wendy whispered.

“Why must you go to a new island?” Willow softly questioned.

“That’s a secret” Wendy bluntly, yet quietly, said “but suffice it to say that it’s a very important reason.”

“You’re not gonna like this, then” Willow whispered with a sigh. “Due to some…complications, this island no longer has the ring thing, the wooden thing, the…umm…” Willows face scrunched up in concentration, she couldn’t recall the names of the other two ‘things’ required to build the Teleportato “and the other ones.”

Wendy shrugged “that’s not so bad.”

Willow looked confused, didn’t Wendy just say that traveling to another island was ‘very important’?

“How come?” The young woman quietly asked.

A slight, eerie, smile found its way onto Wendy’s face.

A look of both annoyance and sorrow formed on Abigail's face.

Wendy whispered “it gives me a good excuse to commit suicide.”

“SUICIDE!” Willow exclaimed with a look of absolute horror.

The young woman immediately covered her mouth, and Willow, Wendy, and Abigail’s heads darted towards the huddled up figure known as ‘Wilson.’ 

Wilson turned over on his sleeping spot known as the grass, and they could hear him mumble in his slumber “the catcoon stole my butter.”

After a few moments of silence Willow whispered “well, we almost woke him up.” Willow turned her attention back to Wendy “I really don’t want you to commit suicide.”

“Why not?” Wendy quietly asked, as she and Abigail turned their heads away from Wilson.

“Because it’s _suicide_ , people committing that sort of thing is so sad, and it’s way worse when a kid as young as you commits it” Willow whispered.

Abigail down heartedly looked at Wendy and said “OooOoooo.”

Wendy looked up at her sister, and quietly responded “this is necessary, besides it’s no different than getting ripped to shreds by hounds or getting electrocuted to death by a bishop.”

“You can understand Abigail when she does that ‘OoOoo’ stuff?” Willow asked in surprise.

Wendy shook her head “no, I just understand Abby well enough to know what she’s asking about.”

After a few seconds of thought, Willow said “how about this, you stay on this island until something eventually kills you.”

“Why not speed up the inevitable?” Wendy questioned.

“Well…” Willow pondered a bit more “Abigail doesn’t seem to want you to commit suicide, and I don’t want you to commit suicide, and Wilson probably wouldn’t want you to commit suicide either. Also, wouldn’t this be a good break from your travels? Staying at this base is like a not-so-good, kinda-relaxing, vacation. At least this base would be more comfortable than what you normally experience.”

“So, your arguments for me to not take my own life are that people don’t want me to die, even though death is everyone’s eventual fate, and I don’t care if you or Wilson get sad. And, because I would be more comfortable being at your base, even though I would much rather traverse through the islands of the constant rather than be trapped in one of them” Wendy concluded.

Above Wendy, Abigail, once again, sorrowfully spoke “oooOooOo.”

Wendy looked back up at her ghostly sister. The two siblings peered into each others white orbs, the twins had always been quite good at looking through each other’s windows and into their souls.

Wendy sighed in slight annoyance and looked back at Willow “We’ll stay, but if death hasn’t come for me before the last day of winter, then I reserve the right to ensure that dying occurs.”

Willow also gave out a sigh, but not one of irritation like Wendy, the young woman let out a sigh of relief “alright, I suppose dying later is preferable to dying sooner.”

“In most cases, that seems to be the case” Wendy quietly commented.

“Okay, Wendy, you should get back to sleeping, and I’m gonna get to sleep too, now that we’ve been acquainted” Willow whispered.

Wendy nodded “before you head off to bed though, can you please help me lay back down again?”

“Oh, of course” Willow whispered.

The young woman propped Bernie up onto the grass beside Wendy, and walked behind the injured little girl. Wendy let Willow gently lift her up, and carefully push her back onto the straw roll beneath her. When Wendy was in an agreeable position on the makeshift sleeping bag, Willow let go of her.

As the pigtailed young lady turned to walk away from the two children, she whispered “good-night.”

Abigail twirled in a circle and cheerfully said “OooOo!” back to Willow.

Wendy monotony said “the two of us wish you a good night as well.”

Willow chuckled and looked for a good spot to fall asleep in. She decided to sleep dangerously close to their base’s fire pit. Wilson had explained to her multiple times before that sleeping so close to the flirepit was a really unsafe thing for her to do. If Wilson was referring to a normal person who didn’t have peculiar immunity to flames, then he would be right. However, Willow did have peculiar immunity to flames, so the only dangerous aspect of the whole situation was that Wilson, and now the twins, might get suspicious of her burn resistancy.

The young woman stared at the bright flickers of light coming from the fire pit. Willow found fire to be entrancing. She loved its beautiful colors, intense red, fierce orange, blazing yellow, fire was such a bright and colorful thing, it looked far too magnificent to be naturally found in nature. Not only was fire beautiful, but it was enthralling to watch too. Fire danced on whatever it clung too, it never stayed still, it always seemed to be acting in its own spectacular performance. Fire was also powerful, it could destroy homes, neighborhoods, and even cities, it was amazing to think that even a small match could cause such mass destruction.

Willow smiled fondly at the fire contentedly sitting in the fire pit, then, she shut her eyes and pulled her lovable stuffed friend closer, before falling into a peaceful slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya'll! Sorry that I got this chapter in late today. Turns out, I'm terrible at pacing myself when it comes to Virtual School, I have no doubt that the straight A streak that I've had for this whole year will vanish. Yay! Anyways, I just want ya'll to keep in mind that this is NOT a Willow/Wilson fanfic, in this story, they'll just be good friends. I'm sorry if you support this ship, but there's a ton of Willow/Wilson fanfics out there. Also, I don't want to reply to comments via the regular way 'cause I feel that me commenting on my own story is misleading to people. For example, I don't want somebody to think oh, this story has ( random number ) comments, wow, it must be good, when in reality half of those comments come from me. So, I'll be replying to comments via this notes box [ New readers, please keep in mind that this is no longer continuing. Despite the fact that I'm rather annoying, I now do answer comments directly ].
> 
> Taranalyn  
> This is really interesting! I can’t wait to see what happens next :o
> 
> Awww, thanks so much! You're comment made my Wednesday!


	3. Chapter 3 - Getting Cleaned Up - Day 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a filler chapter, also, if you've ever experienced extreme torture, then this chapter might be a bit triggering for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya'll! I'm sorry that I didn't update this sooner, the notes at the end of this chapter will explain why.

Wendy felt herself moving, or rather, something moving her. She opened her eyes to see Willow’s face directly in her line of sight. Currently, Willow was moving Wendy into a standing position without injuring her. Wendy straightened out her legs, so Willow gently lowered Wendy to the ground, and calmly let go of her.

Willow pointed to a horizontal log near the base’s fire pit “sit on that, it’s a log-seat-thing that we use for breakfast.”

Wendy nodded and walked over to the log, she was careful to not move her shoulders too much as she was walking, just in case it would cause her pain. She sat down upon it, across from her was a second log that the other member of the base, Wilson, was sitting on top of.

Wilson looked to be a man in his early 30s. He had three-pronged, jet black, hair, that curled at the tips, it made his hair resemble the letter W, but with a fancy font. He also had a magnificent beard that went a bit past his shirt. Wendy wondered if his beard functioned as a weird storage compartment. Wilson wore a white undershirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Over this undershirt was a red vest. Wilson’s attire included black pants, with black shoes, and strangely, black gloves. 

Upon seeing Wendy, Wilson stood up from his log and walked over to her. He stood in front of her awkwardly and held his hand out to Wendy, hoping for a handshake.

Abigail squinted at his hand in curiosity. 

Wendy blankly looked up at Wilson, and in her typical sorrowful tone she asked “Is this some sort of offer for a high-five?”

Wilson looked confused at her question “No, it’s an offer for a handshake.”

Wendy looked at his hand and pondered for a few moments before saying “although the term ‘handshake’ does ring a bell, I remember it not.”

“Ah” Wilson stiffly dropped his arm to the side of him “it’s a formal greeting that people tend to use when they’re meeting new people.” Wilson awkwardly scratched the back of his neck “Ummm, my name is Wilson Percival Higgsbury. I’m an independent, heavily introverted, and logical, gentleman scientist.”

Wendy blinked. They stood together in uncomfortable silence until Wilson spoke up again.

“Don’t you want to introduce yourself?” Wilson asked Wendy, avoiding eye contact “oh, and your sister too.”

“Didn’t Willow inform you of our titles?” Wendy asked, staring intensely, yet at the same time unexpressionately, at the ‘gentleman scientist.’

“Yes, I’m aware that your name is Wendy and your sibling’s name is Abigail“ Wilson said “but, wouldn’t you like to give me a basic description of yourselves?”

“Not really” Wendy admitted.

As Wilson was turning away, slightly ashamed of how terrible their conversation had gone, Abigail’s eerie voice sounded through the autumn air “OooOo.”

Wilson stopped walking away, and turned around towards the twins. Abigail was looking at her sibling expectantly.

Wendy sighed “my sister’s name is Abigail Lillian Carter, she’s rambunctious, optimistic, and silly, but in a good way. My name is Wendy Carter, unfortunately I have forgotten my middle name long ago, I’m composed, pessimistic, and serious, all of which are in a bay way. The two of us are nearly polar opposites.”

Wilson nodded and said “thank you for the information” then, he turned away from the pair, and sat down on the log that he had previously been sitting upon.

Willow popped into the twin’s line of vision. She was holding three plates with food atop them that were unfamiliar to the siblings.

“Alrighty! Breakfast time!” Willow said as she passed a plate to Wendy and Wilson, keeping the third plate for herself. 

Willow sat down beside Wendy and Abigail to eat her breakfast. Her inky black skirt draped gracefully over her knees, like a table with a black tablecloth.

Wendy decided to focus her attention on her food. On her plate there was two aqua domes sitting in a weird white solidified puddle, to the right of them was a piece of thin, curvy, meat. Wendy poked her finger at one of the slippery aqua domes, it jiggled when she prodded it.

“That’s bacon and eggs” Willow said, looking at Wendy with a smile “trust me, they’re pretty good.”

“How do I eat this stuff?” Wendy asked, not taking her eyes away from the food on her plate, just in case it might jump up and attack her.

Willow scooted a bit closer to Wendy and said “there’s a lot of different ways you can eat fried eggs, but as for myself, I tend to eat the egg white first” Willow said as she pointed to the white layer of food beneath the aqua domes.

Wilson watched as Willow taught Wendy how to eat fried eggs and bacon. The young child ate the dish quite elegantly, and when asked if it was enjoyable, she responded that it was ‘satisfactory’.

Wilson spoke up “Back in the old world, Earth, bacon and eggs is quite popular dish.”

Wendy, who was now finished with her meal, turned her attention to Wilson “popularity often leads people down a path of self-destruction. And in the end, they’re just a hollow shell of a person.”

“Ummm…anyways, you don’t seem to recall many things from Earth, so I endeavor to know, how long have you and your sister been in the constant?” Wilson asked.

Wendy shrugged “we don’t have a frame of reference, but we know that we got here in 1914.”

It took the twins a few moments to realize that both of the adults were know staring at the two of them with wide eyes.

“What year is it on Earth?” Wendy asked.

“1922, if I’m not mistaken” Wilson murmured, still amazed by the youthful little girls sitting, and hovering, a few yards in front of him.

Abigail’s eyes grew wide too “OoooOoOOo!”

Wendy simply sighed “eight years matters not when you consider that we’re supposed to stay here for eternity.”

Willow frowned “I’ve lived in this place for barely two years now, and it already feels like eternity.”

“I felt the same way for a little while too, but eventually you’ll loose all, or almost all, of your hope that things will get better. That’s when you just accept that you’ll never die, and the days fade into weeks, and from weeks into months, and from months into years, and from years into decades, and from decades into centuries, and from centuries into…” Wendy couldn’t recall the word for 1,000 years.

“Millennium” Wilson helpfully said.

“Yes, from centuries into Mill-en-nium-s” Wendy sounded out the word, careful not to say it incorrectly “and by then, we’ll all be nut-jobs.”

Silence fell over the group, except for sound of Willow eating her bacon.

Wendy stared at Wilson as he eventually stood up from his seat and walked over to a new-looking backpack that rested on the side of one of the base’s chests. Wilson picked it up, opened it, and added some things from the chests into its contents, and walked out of one of the base’s exits without saying a word.”

By now, Willow was finished with her meal “well, it’s time for us to get started on our day.”

“What are we doing today?” Wendy asked, she never did figure that out.

“I’m taking you down to a nearby pond so that you can have a bath” Willow responded. 

Wendy moaned “But, I don’t really need to have a bath. Being clean doesn’t save one from the grimy grips of death, in the end, my skeleton will still be laying in the dirt, forever touching the filth covered ground. Taking a bath would be completely and utterly meaningless in the end…Also, it would just waste time, and I don’t want to do it”. 

Willow smirked “You definitely need a bath, it doesn’t matter how ‘meaningless’ taking one would be, ‘cause frankly, you stink”. 

Abigail giggled and an audible “OoOooOo!” could be heard from the little ghost girl.

Wendy mumbled something under her breath and annoyedly followed Willow and Abigail out of the base.

It didn’t take too long before they reached the nearest pond. Luckily for them, it was a singular pond, so the frogs probably weren’t going to be too much of an issue. Unfortunately, one frog was already hoping around. 

The frogs of the constant looked innocent and friendly, they didn’t look like a creatures that could use their super sticky tongues to punch you, and tear your flesh away from your body. Willow recalled the first time she had interacted with the frogs of the constant, it wasn’t a pleasant memory. 

Willow was just about to attack the frog, it was quickly making its way over to them, and therefore, it was a threat to her, and the children’s, safety. However, just as it was expanding its stomach to propel itself forward, Wendy smacked her tentacle spike into its belly. The hit hurled the large amphibian into the ground. It opened its maw to attack the morbid girl, but she was quicker than it. 

Just as the creature’s tongue shot out of its mouth, Wendy jumped. Luckily, her jump had caused it to miss, and it also left the creature open for injury. Wendy jabbed her weapon into its open mouth. 

Willow watched in horror as the tentacle spike’s spikes tore open the creature’s left cheek and severed its tongue. Green frog blood oozed out of its wounds, and its tongue began twitching on the ground like a lizard’s tail. 

Wendy proceeded to walk towards it, the frog now realized that it was in extreme danger. It tried to jump away but the wound on its stomach made it too painful to do so. Instead, the frog tried to walk away from her. Of course, the frog now moved quite slowly, not only was it using its small, underdeveloped, and rarely used, legs to walk away, but it was also bleeding profusely. The frog was of no real danger to anyone anymore, due to it now being tongue-less, so Wendy picked it up. 

A cruel smile slid over Wendy’s normally emotionless looking face.

She reached into her pocket and retrieved a sharp piece of flint. This piece of flint was coated in dried red and purple blood, and another shade of color would soon be added to it: green.

Wendy sat down, getting herself comfortable on the ground. The blood-covered frog was struggling in her grip. 

Wendy’s disconcerting smile widened as she thought, your time has come, trying to prevent it will do you no good. 

Wendy recalled the bees that Abigail had killed in the previous island, Wendy managed to retrieve several stingers from their corpses. Wendy placed her piece of flint to her left, then, using her right hand, she pinned the frog to the ground. With her left hand, Wendy grabbed four stingers and some grass out of her pockets.

If she was to have some real fun, then it would be necessary for the frog to be alive and conscious. Wendy gently, and expertly, padded the frog’s cheek in grass. She managed to stop most of the bleeding, and luckily, the frog was still conscious.

 _Perfect_ , Wendy thought with a cruel grin.

The grim and gory little girl flattened out one of the frog’s arms onto the ground, then she grabbed a stinger and hovered its pointy end over the frog’s slippery hand. She began to slowly push it into the frog’s skin, then into its flesh, and finally, into its froggy bones. She dwelved into the sick pleasure of causing pain to the small creature, and Wendy knew that the slower she did it, the more the frog would suffer.

The frog was croaking in agony, it was music to Wendy’s ears. She thoroughly enjoyed watching another creature suffer.

Eventually, the stinger poked out of the amphibian’s slimy hand, but Wendy dug in even deeper. Soon enough, the stinger had been pushed in deep enough into the dirt that it caused the frog’s hand to be rooted to the ground, similar to how someone would set up a tent by sticking stakes into the earth. Wendy delighted in this guilty pleasure as she did the same thing to the creature’s other arm and its two legs.

It looked so helpless lying there, wounded, bloody, and so utterly trapped. Wendy knew that she could do anything she wanted to do to it. It was like a living toy.

Rivers of green blood was flowing from its wounds now, she would need to preform her last acts of cruelty soon, lest the creature fall into unconsciousness before she could finish playing with it.

With the assistance of her bloody piece of flint, Wendy cut her way into the creature’s stomach, exposing its organs to the autumn air. She peered inside the gash she had made, and with her fingers, she ripped it open even wider, the amphibian’s skin split apart gruesomely. Wendy frowned as the pretty sounds died down. Her eyes traveled to the frog’s face, it was at least unconscious, perhaps even dead, but whatever it was, it was no longer entertaining.

Wendy heaved out a disappointed sigh. _All enjoyable things come to an end_ , she reminded herself. 

Wendy sliced off the creatures two legs, Wendy had never tried any frog legs on Earth, however the frog legs of the constant didn’t taste too terrible.

Her eyes scanned the area for Abigail. Abigail was a few yards away, she was hovering over Willow, and was watching as the young woman set up traps around the rim of the pond. 

Wendy solemnly walked towards them as she shoved the pair of legs into one of her pockets.

Once Wendy was in her line of sight, Willow commented “that frog sounded like it was in a lot of pain”

“Yeah” Wendy responded.

“Care to elaborate?” Willow asked, suspicion and curiosity clearly evident on her face.

“Nope” Wendy answered.

Willow shrugged it off. She hadn’t witnesses the torture Wendy had inflicted upon the frog, but she heard it. However, Willow hated the frogs of the constant enough to let the incident slide.

Abigail knew what had occurred. She truly didn’t enjoy seeing Wendy do such cruel things to small, and often, innocent, animals. However, she liked it when her sibling enjoyed herself, and if causing pain to other animals made Wendy happy, then Abigail supported Wendy doing that, although she still didn’t want to watch it happen. 

By now, Willow was setting up her last trap. Willow had once made a base in spring that was close to a couple of ponds, it hadn’t been a smart idea, but she had managed to survive up until some of the last days of Autumn, so she had enough experience with the annoying amphibians. As far as Willow had discovered, the frogs only came out during the daytime, they could be caught via grass traps, and they oddly enough, only attacked other creatures when they were out of the ponds. After Willow had discovered this information, she began to get creative with it. She experimented, and she determined, that it wasn’t dangerous to be in a pond while there was frogs in said pond, it was just dangerous when the frogs got out of the water. However, if traps surrounded the pond, then if the frogs tried to get out of the pool of water, then they would be trapped, and therefore, not dangerous.

“So, do I just jump into the water with my clothes on or…” Wendy trailed off.

Willow quickly said “Yep! I don’t want to see the unseeable”

Wendy nodded, and plopped herself into the pond. As soon as she did so, she bounced right out again, knocking into some of the traps in the process. 

Wendy shrieked “This pond is as cold as death’s icy grip!”

Willow chuckled and said “Sorry, I forgot to warm the pond up first.”

Willow rummaged through her pockets and took out an orange-ish red-ish thermal stone. 

“Since its nearing winter, the pond is really chilly. So, I’ll hold this stone in the water for a while, and you can just wait until the pond is nice and warm before you go in” Willow explained.

The three of them waited for a few minutes. 

Abigail circled around the pond to escape her never ending boredom. 

Willow held the thermal stone in the pond while she wondered about what would happen to the frogs and the fish in the pond once winter struck. 

And, Wendy tried to get herself back to a higher temperature while she waited for Willow to announce when the pond was warm enough to slide into again.

Eventually, the thermal stone’s hot coloring faded into a light gray shade. 

Willow took the stone out, looked at Wendy, and said “This is as good as the pond is gonna get.” 

Wendy nodded, and for the second time, she plopped herself into the water. 

This time, the pond wasn’t cold, in fact, it was actually pleasantly warm. 

“Okay, stay to the side of the pond so that I can clean your hair” Willow instructed.

Wendy was already holding onto the grass around rim of the pond, so she pulled herself towards the waters edge. 

“Please turn around” Willow said.

Wendy did a one hundred and eighty degree turn, causing her back to face Willow. Then, she painfully propped her elbows up onto the moist grass that surrounded the pond.

Willow sat down behind Wendy and grabbed some grass out of her skirt pocket, she proceeded to lay the grass over the little girl’s back injury and said “the water might sting your wound. If it’s too painful, then please let me know.”

Wendy nodded “alright.”

Willow cupped her hands together and scooped up some pond water, then she hurried her palms over to Wendy, and dumped the water on top of her head, making Wendy’s blonde hair turn a light brown shade. Willow repeated this, she reached for some more pond water, and poured it atop Wendy’s head. Eventually, after several dumps of water splashed onto Wendy, her hair looked soaked enough to get out the tangles. 

As most gals know, wetter hair is easier to comb through, and although Wendy had short enough hair to be mistaken for a boy, her short locks were very tangled up. So, having damp hair would be of great aid in conquering Wendy’s messy doo. Willow used her long, skinny, fingers to part and comb through Wendy’s damp strands, carefully unknotting all of her tangles. Wendy winced a multitude of times during the whole hair grooming procedure. However, the small child anticipated this, it was always painful to treat neglected hair.

Finally, Willow was done. She stood up, and stepped behind Wendy “Okay, your hair is all tidied up, so go and clean the rest of your body.” 

Wendy slowly turned her self around, careful to not let go of the grass that sprouted near the water’s rim. Then, she used her hands to scrape off the gunk that clung to her skin and clothes. 

Whilst Wendy did this, Willow killed, and chopped the legs off of, several frogs who were getting stuck in the traps. 

When the now cold, and shivering, Wendy, was finally done cleaning herself, she and Willow folded up the slime-coated traps and stored them in Willow’s backpack. They washed their hands at the pond, and left to go back to their base.

To Wendy’s dismay, it didn’t take long for Willow to strike up a conversation

“So, what are your bracelets for?” Willow casually asked.

Wendy looked down at the three pieces of braided silk that were tied gently on her right wrist. Then, her eyes travelled to the colorful band of webbing that encircled the flower on Abigail’s ghostly head. 

Without looking at Willow, she replied “It’s personal.”

“Does that mean it’s a secret?” Willow asked.

Wendy sighed “I may not remember a lot of things from Earth, however I do recall the saying ‘curiosity killed the cat.’

Willow rolled her eyes “as long as you and Abigail aren’t gonna murder me, then I’m pretty sure being curious won’t kill me. So, is it a secret?”

“Obviously” Wendy said.

A few moments passed before Willow asked another question “Why do you wear a bird’s skull on your head and bones around your neck?” 

With some thought, Wendy responded “I love death, so I wear what I enjoy.” 

Willow stared at her, concern clearly evident on her face “Why do you love death?” 

Wendy sighed and said “I don’t know why, I just find myself enjoying when it occurs. There’s just something inside me that yearns to inflict the pain I’ve felt onto others. They don’t even need to be alive for those desires to take hold of me. Before I got to the constant, I tortured my dolls, I would tear off their button eyes, I’d cut off their limbs, and I’d remove their feathery stuffing.” A reminiscent look came over Wendy’s eyes. “I even created home-made gallows and guillotines for them. Although, it was such a shame that they never writhed in agony or screamed. “Wendy’s expression turned into one of annoyance. She sighed, and the tension that was previously on her face disappeared, once again leaving the morose little girl with a seemingly emotionless expression that only those who knew her best would be able to decipher. 

Willow stopped walking and crouched down to Wendy’s level.

“You poor thing, your internal world must be really sad” Willow said a frown.

Wendy pursed in her trek back to base, and stared at Willow’s eyes. Wendy had always been an expert at determining people’s facial expressions, for her the skill was just natural. Willow looked to be showing genuine concern and empathy.

“Why are you so nice to us?” Wendy asked.

“What do you mean?” Willow questioned, confusion riddled her pale face.

Wendy elaborated “You’ve given Abby and me a place to stay, you sat next to us at breakfast to keep us company, you’ve made sure that I’m clean and well taken care of, you haven’t insulted either of us, and you’re showing me sympathy, even though I definitely don’t deserve such kindness. There is no reason for you to be this nice to us, we aren’t beneficial to you or Wilson, we are total beginners when it comes to living at a base. Why are you treating us with such goodwill?”

Willow frowned “You’re people, people help other people, it’s what we do.”

“Surely you know that that isn’t how our species works” Wendy bluntly said.

“Okay, well at least it’s how me and Wilson work” Willow responded.

“We live out in the _wilderness_. We constantly fight for survival. We don't have to abide by any laws. We kill everything around us, even the creatures that don’t deserve such awful fates. We’re savages. Logic stands that we shouldn’t care about other people, as they only stand in our way of enduring life in this harsh world” Wendy stated.

Willow but a comforting hand on Wendy’s shoulder, and to Willow’s surprise, the little girl didn’t flinch away from the contact “there isn’t any reason to survive if you don’t have anyone to survive for.” Willow looked up at Abigail who was currently hovering directly above Wendy “For example, you attempt to survive an eternity of suffering for your sister’s sake, just as she lives for your sake.”

Wendy’s frown deepened and she looked up at Abigail “as much as I love my sibling, Abby doesn’t give me a will to live, she just gives me more of a desire to die. If true death were to take hold of me, then I’d still be with my sister, and I would no longer have to suffer through my pitiful existence.”

“Then what gives you the motivation to get up in the morning?” Willow curiously and sorrowfully asked.

“That’s…none of your business” Wendy confidently said as she began walking towards the direction of the base again.

Willow sighed and caught up to the speedy little girl “so, another secret?”

“Yep” Wendy said.

Silence fell over the three of them, and nobody spoke until they arrived at their base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so virtual school makes it really difficult to post any chapters of this story on a specific day. I like to edit the chapters a lot before I release them. I probably did eight hours worth of editing to this chapter this week, and about a month ago, I did around twenty hours worth of editing on this chapter, which I think really improved it and allowed me to split the chapter into two. When I edit the chapters of this story it's because new things have happened in the later chapters that require me to change some things up in the newer chapters, or it's because I want to add more details to the chapter, or it's because there's just some things that I really want to change-up in the chapter. 
> 
> Anyways, I don't want anyone to be afraid that because I'm not making quick updates that this story will be discontinued. Please trust me when I say that I refuse to stop writing it. Don't expect any scheduled updates, I may do scheduled updates again when I have more free time, but for now, just anticipate me to be posting new chapters whenever I have the time. Once virtual school is over, then faster updates can, and will, occur.
> 
> Also, just in case you're confused, I'm referencing Wendy's survivor skin when I say that she has short hair and a skull on her head, as well as bones around her neck.
> 
> Bye-bye, and have an amazing rest of your day!


	4. Chapter 4 - Willow And Wendy, The Farmin’ Gals - Day 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly a filler chapter, however I do strongly suggest that you read the last 1/5 of this chapter, 'cause it hints at some stuff and it's important for understanding the next chapter ( I'm using the word chapter a lot in this summary. Chaptery Chapterington of Chaptersville read a chapter of a book with 17 chapters that was written by Ms.Chapteria Chapterling the 36th ).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that it took me almost two weeks to upload a new chapter, I'm not a fast writer.

Upon walking through the entrance of their base, Willow said “could you help me with some chores and stuff?”

“Sure” Wendy grumbled, she didn’t have much else to do.

“Good!” The young woman cheerfully said.

Willow walked over to their base’s ice box and pulled out some monster meat from its depths. Yesterday, when Wilson had found Wendy, he had been killing some spiders, and Wilson had managed to retrieve a good portion of monster meat from his efforts.

Willow proceeded to lead Wendy over to their base’s drying racks and said “alrighty, I’ll hang up the monster meat, and you can take down the jerky.”

In her woeful voice, Wendy asked a question “what is jerky?”

Willow pointed at a crispy, brown, dried chunk of meat that the wind was gently knocking into “this is jerky, it’s just dried up meat, and it takes a longer time to spoil.”

Wendy sighed “but like all things, it eventually reaches its inevitable doom.”

“Yep” Willow said with a nod.

The morbid child could barely reach the ropes of the drying racks to tie the meat down, but with the assistance of tippy toeing, she managed to free the jerky from their gallows.

Meanwhile, Willow tied the braided, grass, ropes around fluffy, purple, monster meat, so that in time, it too could become jerky.

“Dang, somebody really should build more drying racks, I don’t think we’ll have any more room for the frog legs” Willow stated.

Wendy looked up at the raven haired adult and asked “Is it a problem with resources? Do you not have enough grass or charcoal?”

Willow shook her head “We have enough grass, and we definitely have enough charcoal” Willow chuckled “trust me, I’ve made sure of that. It’s just kinda boring building stuff, luckily winter’s pretty boring, so maybe me or Wilson can do some construction to pass the time.”

Wendy nodded and said “I could always build more of them for you, I don’t mind.”

Willow shook her head “Nah, kids shouldn’t have to do such hard labor.”

Wendy squinted in frustration “I’ve already been doing that kind of hard labor for nearly half of my life. Besides“ Wendy motioned to the drying rack right in front of her “these things look stupidly easy to make, all you have to do is prop two sticks into the ground, balance another stick on top of them, and throw some rope on top.”

Willow commented “it feels like I’d be encouraging child labor if I let you do that.”

Wendy considered this and responded “fair enough, I can respect your reluctance.”

Eventually, the two of them were done with their task, and Willow ended up being correct, they didn’t have enough room for any frog legs, although they did have exactly enough racks to hang up all of their monster meat, which was a nice mini-success.

Willow turned her focus to some nearby farms. Plants sprouted elegantly from the dark brown patches of soil, they’re pretty, green, curly vines snaked the white picket fences that stood inside of their rocky border.

Whilst Wendy walked to their ice box to deposit the frog legs she had obtained from torturing a frog earlier that day, Willow knelt down to a farm with a gorgeous dragon fruit growing from out of the mass of leaves that stunningly sprouted from the earth.

Willow’s hands surrounded the gorgeous crop, then she pulled it until an audible *snap* could be heard. The tension between herself and the ground was broken, and as soon as it was, the previously lush, healthy looking, leaves that had once encircled the rare crop, withered, until they resembled crumpled up papyrus. Willow blew on the plant the way one would if they were extinguishing a candle, and it’s brown, unhealthy, leaves turned into dust and blew away.

The farm contained life no longer.

Having returned from the ice box, Wendy commented “that looks like it’s an organ taken straight out of something’s chest.”

Willow looked down at the dragon fruit in her grasp “organs definitely don’t look like this.”

“Yea they do, they’re pretty, red, and they look to be around the same size” Wendy responded. “Also, it’s not that hard to imagine it suddenly beating or jerking around.”

Willow shook her head “I think it looks more like a fire, it’s got the right colors and it’s in a flame sorta shape.”

“Agree to disagree, then?” Wendy said.

“Yea, agree to disagree” Willow nodded. The young woman shoved the pretty fruit inside of one of her pockets and asked “Have you ever farmed anything that’s not a carrot before?”

The young girl shook her head “besides cactuses and mushrooms, no.”

“Well today’s your lucky day” Willow said. Then, the young woman looked up at Abigail who was currently hovering directly above Wendy “I’ve got a job for you too, if you’re up taking it, that is.”

Abigail happily twirled in a circle “OoooOoo!” The ghostly girl was happy to do something other than stare at her twin do boring chores.

“Alright, follow me” Willow instructed.

The twins trailed behind her, stopping once Willow reached a golden birdcage that was far too extravagant to be found in the wilderness.

A red bird sat contentedly in this cage, Wilson had named her Ms.Tweeters, it was a simple name compared to the name Wilson had given their island’s chest dog: Otto von Chesterfield, Esq.

The fire-lover opened the door to the fancy cage. Ms.Tweeters chirped in anticipation for her meal, her bright berry-red wings eagerly fluttered about. Willow gently put the dragon fruit into the bird cage and proceeded to swing its door shut and lock it into place.

On the last harvest, Willow had managed to receive a dragon fruit, unfortunately Ms.Tweeters only supplied Willow with one dragon fruit seed for her efforts, Willow hoped that things would be different this time around.

Willow spun around to face the two children.

The twins looked confused, and Wendy looked like she was just about to ask a question.

“Oh, uh, birds in the constant don’t just eat seeds” Willow commented.

“Elaborate, please” Wendy said, still not entirely convinced that Willow hadn’t lost her marbles.

“They can eat a variety of different fruits and veggies, several different meats, and from what I’ve discovered, they can, and will, eat their own eggs” Willow explained.

Abigail looked horrified, Wendy looked completely unperturbed.

Wendy scooted past Willow to look at the entrapped bird, sure enough, it was jabbing its beak into the dragon fruits thick layer of skin, apparently it _would_ willingly eat the dragon fruit.

“Okay, so Abigail, stay next to this bird cage and come get me if this red bird, Ms.Tweeters, spits out any seeds” Willow instructed.

Abigail confidently nodded, floated herself next to the cage, and stared at Ms.Tweeters so intently you would’ve thought that the two of them were having a one-sided staring contest.

Willow smiled at the little ghost and gave her a thumbs up, however this hand motion was useless, as Abigail had forgotten what thumbs up meant.

Willow turned her attention to Wendy, the morbid young child was staring expectantly at her “and you can help me do some farming.”

Wendy morosely said “so, we’ll be committing mass murder together?”

Willow nervously shrugged “yea, I suppose you could say that.”

Wendy commented “isn’t it sad how Krampus doesn’t consider killing plants an act of naughtiness?”

Willow awkwardly scratched the back of her neck “I guess…”

Wendy had almost forgotten how amusing it was to see people try to react to her morbid statements.

The morose little girl followed Willow to the soon-to-perish plants. She noted how all of the farms were aligned perfectly with one another in a grid like fashion, it was quite visually appealing.

Willow gave Wendy some instructions “harvesting plants from farms in the constant is actually super simple, all ya have to do is rip them up from the ground.”

Wendy nodded and watched as Willow walked over to a farm with a pumpkin growing from it. Wendy walked over to a farm next to Willow. She looked down at her own plot of farmland, a plump tomato sprouted from it, ready to be torn from its short, yet content, life. However, Wendy didn’t know how to tear it from its leafy cushioning. Although Wendy continued to face the plump, red, crop, she let her eyes travel to Willow. The young woman was handling a pumpkin, her hands, along with her arms, were wrapped tightly around the hard orange crop. Wendy attempted to do the same, but her tomato was a lot smaller than Willow’s pumpkin, so it was hard to hug her arms around it, also Wendy was worried that her fruit would squish like a berry when you apply too much pressure to it.

Willow noticed that Wendy was staring at her out of the corner of the little girl’s eyes. Willow turned her head to face Wendy. Immediately, the small child looked away, focusing her gaze upon the tomato that she was very clearly struggling with.

Wendy didn’t want Willow to see how difficult that this ‘super easy’ task was for her, however Willow had realized that Wendy really had no Idea about how she was to go about harvesting her tomato.

Wendy soon found Willow crouching down right next to her.

“So, what’s your dominant hand?” Willow asked with a soothing voice.

“My left hand” Wendy answered.

“Okay” Willow said as she guided Wendy’s right hand to the large, leaf covered, stem of the plant that was keeping the tomato attached to the ground.

Then, Willow moved Wendy’s left hand to the top of the crop, where the green of the plant met the red of the tomato. Afterwards, Willow’s hands closed tightly, yet gently, around Wendy’s smaller hands.

“When we’re harvesting juicer, more fragile, plants, like the tomato, we need to be careful not to squish them” Willow explained “if we hold the tomato like this, then we won’t squish it.”

Wendy nodded “okay.”

“Now, let’s pull!” Willow said.

They pulled the tomato towards Wendy whilst they tugged the stem of the leafy plant away from the fruit

*Snap*

Wendy was still frowning, but their success made her expression not so glum.

The previously lush and beautifully green leaves of the plant withered away until they looked shriveled up and completely dry.

“Blow on it like you’re blowing out a candle” Willow instructed as she pointed to the dead looking plant.

Wendy let out a directed puff of air, and watched as the remainder of the plant blew away like sand into the wind.

Then, Willow stood up and looked down at Wendy “don’t be afraid to ask me for help, a task is always done better when it’s done correctly.”

Wendy shook her head “actually, some of the greatest inventions, artworks, and scientific breakthroughs were done by people who incorrectly did things” Wendy commented.

“Okay well, a task is _almost_ always done better when it’s done correctly” Willow said, rephrasing her previous statement “how’s that?”

“That’s good” Wendy said with a nod.

Meanwhile, Abigail was still staring at Ms.Tweeters. The little girl was amazed at how quickly the small red bird had broken through the skin of the fruit. Its beak had torn through the dragon fruit’s thick hide, soon exposing the unexpectedly uncolorful insides of the fruit. Abigail could no longer see the bird’s head, as soon as it had seen the inside of the crop, it had feverishly began devouring the insides of the fruit, until it had hollowed out enough room in the plant to stick its head into the fruit in order to reach more of the fruit’s white, black-speckled, pulp.

Abigail was getting worried that the bird might suffocate in the fruit.

Suddenly, the bird ripped its head out of its colorful meal, gasped for air, and proceeded to once again stick its head into the dragon fruit.

Abigail continued to look at the bright red bird, going into her regular habit of staring at each little detail of a thing to fend off the never ending boredom of being a ghost.

Being dead sucked.

Close to a decade ago, she had died. Although most of her memories were blurry and fuzzy, she never seemed to be able to forget the last moments she had been alive.

She had been so foolish.

The weather that day had been better than most days in England, that wasn’t to say it was warm, sunny, and inviting, no, it just wasn’t raining, and she couldn’t pass up the chance to goof of outside. That was why it had seemed so irritating when she saw her twin wasting a perfectly dry day to read Shakespeare, something that Wendy usually did inside of the house.

She just couldn’t let her sibling pass up such a good opportunity for fun just so that she could reread A Midsummer Night’s Dream for about the tenth time. So, Abigail snuck up in front of her, a task that was quite easy, given how engrossed in her book Wendy was. Then, she tossed a few of her honey colored locks on top of the pages in Wendy’s book. Her sister flinched and let out a yelp in surprise.

Back then it had always been so easy to scare Wendy. Now, she barely ever got frightened. It didn’t matter how close to death she was, or how sudden a jump-scare was, Wendy no longer shrieked or winced in fear or in surprise.

Abigail pushed back her hair to reveal a goofy, playful, sorta scary, expression that invited Wendy to giggle or make a funny expression of her own. Instead, Wendy just blinked, and returned to her attention back to her book.

She was a bit frustrated upon seeing her attempts to get Wendy to play with her didn’t work, so she decided to literally drag Wendy into having some fun. She swiftly grabbed her siblings hand, pulled her up to her feet, and ran in a random direction. Wendy was unwillingly pulled along with her, she was intent upon returning to her reading when her sister would eventually let go of her hand. However, Wendy changed her mind when she saw where her sibling was headed.

Although the Carter parents weren’t rich, they had quite a large sum of money and were able to buy a large, fancy, house on a beautiful cliffside overlooking the ocean. Abigail had enjoyed how much space she had to run around and explore, their house was gigantic, and so was their yard, it was perfect for an active girl like Abigail.

Unfortunately, her parents decision to buy such a wonderful house, ended up being the most regretted decision of their lives.

Abigail led Wendy to the mossy rocks that sat contentedly on the edge of their property’s cliff. She let go of her sister’s hand and climbed up the pile of rocks with ease. The active little girl managed to stand up on a flat, moss-covered, rock.

It had all felt so wonderful, the zing of excitement in the air, the wind blowing through her hair, it was like a mini-adventure.

Abigail motioned for her sibling to join her.

Wendy shook her head, she had always been the more sensible twin.

Abigail frowned for a split-second, she wanted her sister to join her in the fun, but then she thought that Wendy might join her if she showed her how fun playing on the rocks could be. Abigail jumped to another rock, her sister’s concerned eyes following her as she moved. She leapt to another and looked back at her twin, with adventure in her eyes.

At the time, Abigail had though that Wendy was being overly careful, but in reality it was Abigail who wasn’t being careful enough.

Abigail stood herself up on the rock and turned around to look at her sister, a goofy, silly, smile sat upon her face. She casually began to walk backwards.

Then, her foot slipped.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Abigail screamed and fell backwards. Wendy’s eyes grew wide in fear, she ran towards her sister. Her hand reached out in front of her in a desperate attempt to save Abigail, even though the two of them were so far apart, even though Wendy couldn’t possibly reach her sister before she tipped over the ledge.

Abigail fell, and like horse blinders, her fluffy blonde hair concealed her descent from herself. All that she could see was the rocks and the cliff quickly growing smaller and smaller. And right before she hit the water, she saw Wendy too.

The small, distant, terrified, head of her sister was the last thing that she saw, and the last thing that she felt, was agonizing pain.

Suddenly, Ms.Tweeters yanked her head out of the fruit once more. She took a few breaths, and as she did so, a thin, green, seed fell into the grass next to the cage.

Abigail excitedly floated over the wooden walls of the base and hovered right in front of Willow.

Willow silently looked up at Abigail and smiled, then she proceeded to rush inside of the base. Just as she rounded the corner of the nearest entrance, a black bird flew down onto the light green seed.

“Shoo! Go away!” Willow yelled as she ran towards it.

The bird got the message loud and clear, it flew back up into the clouds, disappearing from sight.

Willow crouched down at the spot the bird had landed. Luckily, the seed was nestled into the grass, even after the black bird had nearly eaten it. Willow pinched the seed in her thumb and index finger and brought it underneath her nostrils.

The seed smelled like dragon fruit, if planted, it would grow the fire-resembling pitaya.

As Willow was turning around to return to farming, another seed fell out of Ms.Tweeters mouth. With a quick reaction, Willow caught the seed as it fell. She once again held it to her nose, an action which Abby was quite confused about, and smiled, it too would produce a dragon fruit.

Willow gave Abigail a short good-bye wave before heading towards another unharvested crop.

Eventually, she and Wendy had emptied their farms of any life.

“Now, we’ll need to plant some seeds” Willow explained.

The young woman crouched down next to the nearest farm and motioned for Wendy to join her. The little girl complied and listened carefully as Willow instructed her on how she ought to sow the light green bird-food.

“First, we make a small hole in the ground” Willow demonstrated this by using her fingers to part the dirt.

“Next, we drop a seed into the ground” Willow grabbed one of the dragon fruit seeds from her pocket, then she held it above the hole and loosened her grip on it, letting the seed silently fall down and nudge itself into the rich soil.

“Lastly, we cover the hole back up with dirt” Willow padded the soil that she had obtained from parting the dirt, into the whole.

“And thats all that we have to do” Willow said as she stood up.

After grabbing a bunch of seeds for their base’s ice box, and storing their crops inside of it, Willow and Wendy sowed until each one of their farms had a seed planted in it.

“Now what do we do?” Wendy asked.

“I uhhh…” Willow pondered for a few moments before saying “I’ll get the crockpots ready for dinner, and you can check to see if any of the grass tufts or the saplings are ready to be harvested, if they are, then ya know, harvest them.”

“Would you mind helping me with my task first? Frankly, I’m quite confused with what I’m supposed to do” Wendy said.

“Sure” Willow replied, even though she didn’t entirely comprehend why the task was difficult to understand.

“Where is this place located?” Wendy asked.

“Follow me” Willow responded as she began walking in the direction of her and Wilson’s twig and grass farm.

For maximum space, the saplings and the grass tufts were neatly arranged right in front of one another. Like the farms, each sapling and grass tuft was lined up perfectly next one another, creating a visually appealing image to the eye.

“Wait a second, you can move these things?” Wendy asked, motioning towards a sapling that she was standing next to.

“Yea, ya just need a shovel and you can scoop these plants right up and then plant them wherever you’d like ‘em, but you need to use poop to fertilize the grass or it won’t grow.” Willow explained.

“Does that work for berry bushed too?” Wendy asked.

“Yep, but, like the grass tufts, when the berry bushes are planted, you need to fertilize them” Willow informed her. “Wilson harvested the berry bushes yesterday, so they aren’t ready to be harvested yet, we’re gonna have to wait until winters done to deal with them.”

Wendy nodded “okay, I’ve got it from here, you go off and do that thing with the crockpots.”

“Alrighty, have fun” Willow said as she turned around to take her leave.

“I won’t” Wendy glumly responded.

Once Willow prepared their bases two crockpots for dinner, she helped Wendy harvest the remaining saplings and grass tufts, however Wendy was significantly faster as she had way more experience than Willow with gathering twig and grass resources.

Once they were finished, Willow declared that she would sew up Wendy’s clothing, as neither of them had anything left to do around the base, and the young girl’s clothing was in tatters.

“I’m going to die anyways, there’s no point, sewing my clothing would just waste time and resources” Wendy grumpily stated.

Willow sighed “there is a point to do sew up your outfit, and that’s to make it more comfortable and more modest.”

“Okay, fine” Wendy consented, then she murmured “but I don’t know if my clothes are dry enough yet.”

Willow crouched down to Wendy’s height and pinched her red skirt “it feels dry enough.”

The pair sat down on a log whilst Abigail silently hovered over her twin, and for the next few hours, Wendy sat deathly still as Willow stitched her clothes back together.

Eventually, when Willow was about a third of the way finished, she struck up a mostly one-sided conversation with the twins. They conversed about Wilson, Chester, winter, summer, and when Willow was almost done with sewing up Wendy’s outfit, spiders.

Willow stated “Actually honey poultices can get pretty annoying during the summer, I strongly prefer using healing salve.”

A sad look formed in Abigail’s eyes “OooOoOo.”

“Hmmm?” Willow hummed.

“Abby and I are strongly opposed to using healing salve” Wendy said.

“How come?” Willow casually asked, not sensing the tenseness in the air.

“In order to make healing slave, then at least one spider must die, and we would refuse to kill spiders unless entirely necessary” Wendy explained.

“I thought you liked killing things” Willow said.

“I do, but spiders are a definite exception” Wendy responded.

“Why?” Willow questioned.

“The constant’s arachnids are very lovely creatures” Wendy stated.

“Are you joking with me, or are you being serious?” Willow asked, stopping her sewing to look Wendy in the eyes.

“I’m being serious” Wendy unexpressionately answered.

Both of the twins were staring directly at Willow. She figured that they were either trying to intimidate her into stopping her questioning, or if the two girls were simply awaiting her response. Although Willow didn’t want to get on either of the children’s bad sides, she was too curious not to ask more questions, so she decided to assume that it was the latter.

“Why do you two find spiders to be so lovely?” Willow asked as she nervously dragged her eyes back to the needle and thread in her grasp and continued to sew.

“Spiders are actually very smart and complex beings that are so terribly misunderstood. They only attack other creatures because they’re such a protective species. Also, they’re very sweet and nice once you get to know them and they realize that you aren’t a threat. The arachnids of the constant aren’t too dissimilar to humans, mentally of course, physically they’re like a cross between a cat and a regular spider from Earth” Wendy explained.

“It seems as though you know a lot about the spiders here, how come?” Willow asked, glancing up at Wendy to hear her reply.

A small bit of emotion overcame Wendy’s sturdy wall of seemingly emotionlessness.

With a clearly sorrowful, yet reminiscent, look on her face, Wendy replied “I don’t want to talk about that, it’s…another personal secret.”

A frown formed on Willow’s face, and a concerned and eager to help look grew in her eyes “are all of these ‘personal secrets’ so sad?” Willow asked.

“Yes” Wendy answered “its not that I don’t trust you with my secrets, you seem really nice, and mostly trustworthy. It’s just that, when I talk about them, or think about them too much, they make me really emotional and sad, and I can’t handle going into another period of depression. I don’t like feeling so terrible. I want to be able to have the strength to get up off of the ground. I want to be capable of seeing the good parts about life, even if there isn’t that much to be happy about.” Wendy sighed “Depression and I have a long and complicated history with one another, and I would prefer to stay far away from its cruel grip.”

Willow gently dropped her sewing kit and pulled Wendy in for a hug.

The small child consented.

Wendy could feel her eyes getting watery, but she held her tears back and nuzzled her face further into Willow’s comforting embrace.

“It’s okay kiddo” Willow reassuringly said “just try to think about happier things.”

“I’m trying to, but it’s hard” Wendy whimpered.

“Okay, how about I distract you then?” Willow offered.

“Yes please” the small ten-year-old said.

“Do you know the Greek story of Prometheus?” Willow asked Wendy.

“No” Wendy said.

_Thats good,_ Willow thought with relief, _now I can make the story a lot happier than it actually is._

Willow motioned for Abigail to join the two of them. The ghostly little girl happily hovered herself over the pair, she didn’t know the story of Prometheus either, but it had been years since she had heard a good fair tale or folk story, so she was eager to hear it.

Willow began “Once upon a time, a nice young titan named Prometheus wanted to give an amazing gift to humans…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if it isn't obvious, Willow is going to be a mother-figure to Wendy and Abigail. Yea, I know that being motherly is out of character for Willow, but I don't care, it's going to happen anyways, and their ain't nothin' that you can do to stop me. 
> 
> Also, I'm aware that many people have assigned a fatherly role to Wilson, and I like that, but just because of the way I was raised, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of any non-gay adult male ( in this story Wilson is straight, I'm sorry, I promise you there will be gay characters in this story, though ) getting touchy-feely ( hugs, piggy-back-rides, and other supposedly harmless stuff ) with any female child. 
> 
> My personal privacy has NEVER been invaded by any adult male, its just that I had a mean, narcissistic, father that was quite touchy-feely, and my nice step father isn't touchy-feely whatsoever, so I've grown to dislike touchy-feely stuff between adult males and little girls. 
> 
> This doesn't mean that Wilson can't mentally be a good father-figure to Wendy, however it does mean that there won't be much fluff between the two of them.
> 
> Okay, now for some good news and bad news.
> 
> Good news: I probably won't have to do much editing with chapter five, so ya'll can read it earlier, and It's my favorite chapter out of the eighteen that I've written so far, so I think ya'll will dig it. Also, it's quite different from chapters 3, 4, and 5, but in my opinion, it differs from them in a good way.
> 
> Bad News: I'm totally re-doing chapter six, it was way too short and quite boring, so chapter six won't come out for a while.


	5. Chapter 5 - The Nightmare - The Night Of Day 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This ain't a filler chapter, so I suggest that you read this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations if you noticed that this was a double chapter upload.

The loud and unpleasant sound of barking filled her ears.

Fear consumed Wendy, she was back in this dreadful dream again.

“That’s not good” a heart wrenchingly familiar voice said.

It was the same thing that they always said at the beginning of this nightmare. It was a wretched reminder of how she might never hear their voice outside of this dream ever again.

Surrounding the two of them was a birch nut forest. The leaves of the nearby birch nut trees elegantly twirled to the ground, unresisting the pull of the inevitable as they were added to the piling heaps of autumn foliage. Wendy though that the leaves must’ve fell so willingly because they could see their families dead bodies right below them. 

She gloomily pushed herself off of the grassy forest floor. 

Her injured colleague sat against a nearby birch nut tree. Unfortunately for her friend, they had been gravely injured a few minutes ago in their last fight with a clockwork rook.

Her ally stared worriedly at Wendy whilst she walked in front of them and retrieved a spear from out of the depths of her pocket.

At the beginning of this horrid nightmare, Wendy’s movements always directly mimicked the movements that she had made on that fateful day. At the beginning of this dream, she couldn’t even control her own voice. It was as though her dream wanted to remind her about how she had denied that anything bad would occur, and how she had insisted to, even going to the lengths of promising, her companion that everything would be fine.

Her friend’s voice rang out again, she could barely hear them amongst the loud sounds of the baying beasts “hopefully the evil tall man is only sending two of them.”

“Stop worrying, we’ll be fine” Wendy said, if she had the ability to control what she was saying, then she would’ve informed her friend that they definitely wouldn’t be fine.

“Wendy, we’re in a really bad situation” they wined.

“No we’re not, it’s not as if I haven’t protected you from hound attacks before” Wendy countered as her eyes scanned the birch nut forest for any sounds of the malicious beasts.

“Yea, but we don’t have any medical equipment left” they reminded her, urging Wendy to feel as much fear as they were. Neither one of them spoke for a few moments, but Wendy’s comrade eventually piped up again “somebody could die.”

Wendy stepped backwards and put a comforting hand on the shoulder of her friend “don’t worry, I’ll keep us safe. We’ll get through this just like we’ve gotten through every other hardship we’ve been faced with.”

Her companion continued to look up at her, their worried expression was unchanged by her words.

“If it makes you feel any better, I can call forth Abby” Wendy offered.

Her ally eagerly nodded.

Only a few minutes ago, Abigail had died, the hounds would easily be able to kill her, however in the small amount of time she would be around, she would provide Wendy with significant help with killing the hounds and protecting their friend.

Wendy carefully reached into one of her pockets and brought out a light pink bulb from its depths. 

Then, she held the flower close to her face, and softly whispered to it “we know that you’re tired, but we can’t do this alone.”

She gently tossed the closed-up blossom into the air. Within seconds, the flower turned a pretty red color, and it’s soft, dainty, petals ripped themselves apart from one another and swooped back down to her palms where they reunited and, faded into a light pink shade, forming her siblings delicate bulb.

The nearby ghostly form of her sister spoke in alarm towards the sounds of hounds “OoooOh!”

Their injured friend turned their head to face Abigail, wincing a bit in pain as they did so. “hey Abby, sorry for waking you up, but as you can see, or rather, hear, we need all the help we can get.”

Abigail nodded in understanding.

Then, Wendy looked down at her poor comrade.

“We’ll be okay” she stated as she patted the top of their head.

Wendy’s friend said “promise?”

“Promise” Wendy replied.

Ever time she had this dream, Wendy made that promise, however, she never could keep it.

The little girl returned to her previous position in front of her companion. Her weapon was drawn, and she was ready to attack anything that approached the trio.

Suddenly, her friend yelled “on your left!”

That was the signal, whatever control that this nightmare had on her body, was broken, and Wendy could now move and speak freely once again.

Even though Wendy knew that her attempts would be futile, she still ran at the large, black, hound that was speeding towards her.

Hounds looked like hunchbacked wolves, their short spines curved at an unnatural angle, and if it wasn’t apart of their natural genetic makeup, Wendy would’ve thought that it was extremely painful. The hounds had jagged, pearly, teeth, and a maw that took up most of their body, Wendy had harvested the disgusting monster meat from many a hound before, and she had seen how small their organs, besides the organs apart of their digestive system, were. The hounds had thick, pitch black, fur that wasn’t all that dissimilar to a spider’s fur, but Wendy still despised the savage beasts, even if they had many physical characteristics that they shared with spiders. 

In her run, Wendy decided to do a certain special attack move that she had done to this first hound several times before in this horrible dream. When the hound was alarmingly close, Wendy slid under it mid-run, making sure to hold the point of her spear facing the sky, causing it to tear through the beasts flesh with a gruesome, yet satisfying, sound, and making small drips of purple hound blood fall onto her small, frail, hands. The creature yelped in pain.

Wendy was glad that the hound was in pain, she wouldn’t have it any other way…other than dead, that is.

After sliding between its two front legs, Wendy quickly got to her feet, not wasting any time to shove her weapon into the monster’s backside. Then, the little girl yanked her spear out of the hound, it wasn’t dead yet, but in a short amount of time it would be, and she knew from experience in her dream that the wounds she had just dealt to the beast were enough to keep it from running after her.

She turned and ran towards the second hound. Inconveniently, it was to the right of the tree her friend sat up against, it would take her a good ten seconds to get to it, and unfortunately every one of those ten seconds was precious during a fight scene, sort of like how every second you remain alive is meaningful on your death bed.

Before the hound could get to either of her best friends, Wendy reached it, and quickly plowed her weapon into its stomach, and with just as much speed as she had shoved it into the beast, she tore it out of the horrid animal. The determined hound was still running, however, it turned towards its attacker and, fortunately, away from her allies.

Wendy readied her stance, bending her legs and tightening her grip onto her blood covered spear.

The hound slightly paused in front of the small child and opened its maw to a ridiculously tall height in an attempt to devour its attacker whole. Unfortunately for it, Wendy had gone through this situation with the beast hundreds of times before, and knew exactly how to avoid getting eaten.

As the monster was opening its maw, Wendy jumped on top of its head, and the beasts sudden movement of opening its mouth was enough force to send Wendy flying a bit into the air. The young child was quick to position the point of her spear towards the ground. In less than a second after she had rose into the air, she began to fall back down again. Within a couple quick blinks of an eye, the point of Wendy’s spear touched the creature’s fur covered head and parted its skin until a spear-sized hole was made into the roof of the beast’s mouth, and in another moment or two, her spear made another gruesome whole that went through the bottom of the hound’s mouth. 

Wendy, having landed on the profusely bleeding roof of the hounds maw, jumped down, pulling her weapon with her.

She could hear the sounds of nearby yelping and barking, Abigail must’ve been handling the third hound. 

Suddenly, the injured beast beside Wendy staggered up from the ground, and once again attempted to dig its sharp teeth into her. The young girl speedily dodged its attack and turned to the side of the dangerous animal where she had first attacked it. This time, instead of jabbing her spear through its stomach, Wendy thrust her weapon into its chest, where its heart would normally be located. The hound yelped in pain, but Wendy continued to push her spear into it, causing her to force the mass of fur, teeth, and monster meat, onto the ground. Then, the blood-covered child pulled her spear out of its chest and replaced its presence with her hand.

Wendy’s hand mercilessly dug through the hole in the hound’s flesh, and wrapped her thin fingers around the hound’s heart. Then, she yanked it out of the monster, causing various blood filled tubes connected to the heart to snap and beautifully release bursts of blood into the air. Sadly, Wendy couldn’t examine the wonderfully gory spectacle, she had two more hounds to kill, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to kill one of those hounds until it was too late.

The fourth hound was running at her injured companion. 

In the span of only a few moments, Wendy sprinted towards the beast, leapt onto its back, and sunk her spear into its flesh, managing to get the monster to focus on her, and not her ally.

The beast snarled and tried to throw her off of itself, however Wendy wouldn’t budge, she repeated the stabbing motion with her spear until the movement of the creature was too slow and weak to be of any real threat to anyone’s safety.

The third hound would be the one to kill her friend today, occasionally the fourth beast was their killer, a couple of times the second monster murdered them, but Wendy would still try to prevent the horrifying event from occurring, even if she knew that her struggle to save them would be in vain.

Her eyes darted to the third hound, it had just killed Abigail and was onto its next victim.

Wendy was beginning to feel tears well up into her eyes, it was clear that the beast would reach her beloved best friend before she did.

The little girl ran as fast as her ten-year-old legs would permit her to towards the creature which would deal the fatal blow to her dear companion.

She knew that she would never reach them in time.

The hound was almost at her friend, three feet away, two feet away, one fo-

“WENDY!” They screamed.

That name had been the exact name that they had called for when this traumatizing event had actually occurred.

The hound opened up its maw to a towering height, her friend was trying to scoot away from the fiend, which probably felt very painful due to their two severely broken legs. Then, the beast bit into her companion’s broken limb, causing them to scream in pure agony. It proceeded to pull its victim towards itself, until it towered over Wendy’s struggling friend.

The hound opened up its tooth-lined mouth, and tore into the stomach of its prey.

“NO!” Wendy screamed “STOP THAT YOU FOUL FIEND!”

Tears ran down her cheeks, this nightmare never got any easier to deal with.

Her friend tried to push the monster off, but their attempts would always prove useless as the savage beast tore at their insides.

Wendy finally reached the scene and pushed her spear inside of the hound’s throat, making a bloody hole appear through the hound’s thin layer of flesh in its mouth. The beast snarled hostilely at the little girl who was now attacking it. Purple hound blood splashed onto Wendy’s clothes as she repeatedly stabbed her friend’s onslaughter with anger fueled vigor. Once the hound stopped moving, Wendy rushed to her companions side and reached into her pockets for some grass.

For some reason, the dream began to become faded, and Wendy felt less connected to it. She also felt like she was being moved, as though she was being lightly shook.

She heard two voices getting gradually louder.

“Wake up!”

“Stars and atoms! She is so deep in sleep!”

“C’mon kiddo, open your eyeballs, stop having a nightmare.”

“Telling her to stop dreaming won’t help her wake up.”

“It’ll help. WAKE UP!”

Suddenly, Wendy’s eyes fluttered open, and she immediately sat up, causing her to wince from the injury on her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of you are actually reading this notes box stuff, but in the last notes box I said that chapter five was my favorite chapter, well the chapter that I was previously referring to has now been pushed to being chapter six, as I decided on a whim to write this chapter, and I didn't want to disappoint any of you by not also uploading chapter six, so here you go, a double chapter upload.
> 
> I don't know if the identity of Wendy's friend is obvious or not, I'm gonna assume that it is, though. Anyways, this chapter will have hopefully cleared some stuff up, or it might've given you more questions. Who knows, well, besides you, that is.


	6. Chapter 6 - The First Day Of Winter - Day 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is another filler chapter, but if you liked the fighting scenes of the last chapter, then you might enjoy reading this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a double chapter upload! Please make sure that you've read the previous chapter before reading this one.

After Wendy had awoken from her nightmare, she had refused to talk about her dream at all, or receive any sort of comfort from the adults, only accepting it from her beloved sister. She simply instructed Willow and Wilson to go back to sleep, and despite their concerns and worries about Wendy, they decided that Wendy looked to be in no mood to be coddled like a small child, so they did as they were told and went back to sleep onto their uncomfortable sleeping bags known as the ground.

Wendy decided to stay up for the rest of the night, not doing anything particularly interesting besides crafting some rope and sleeping bags, watching the adults as they slept and playfully imagined that they were actually dead, along with whispering the occasional conversation to her sister.

Eventually, the sun replaced the moon in the sky, and with its welcomed appearance, came a sudden, unwelcomed, coldness. So, Wendy woke the adults up and let them pick out some winter clothes for her and themselves whilst she ate breakfast.

Eventually, after they had put on all of their necessary winter survival items, Wilson started up a conversation.

Wilson said “So, what exactly do you three want to do today?” 

Wilson had adorned himself with a Beefalo Hat, and he had grown out his magnificently long beard to further insulate himself in preparation for the cold winter season, not only this, but Wilson also had a heated thermal stone in his pocket.

Willow asked “What does one do daily to survive winter?”

Willow was dressed in rabbit earmuffs and a breezy vest, she, like Wilson, also had a hot thermal stone tucked in her pocket.

Wendy recalled how Willow had told her that she had never really learned how to survive winter, and most of what she knew about it came from Wilson.

Wendy was insulated in a Beefalo Hat and a breezy vest that were two sizes too big for her, they were originally intended for Willow and Wilson, but they let her have it because she was a child. The adults had also gifted her with a thermal stone, luckily yesterday Willow had informed Wendy about how to use the stone when they were conversing about winter.

Wilson paused in contemplation, then looked at Willow, and said “perhaps somebody could go koalefant hunting. Another person could mine some ice” Wilson swiveled his head towards Wendy “and someone could go visit the Savannah to check on the rabbit traps and hang some meat up onto the drying racks.” After a moment of silence, he added “And of course Abigail would go with Wendy.”

“Abby and I call koalefant hunting duty” Wendy announced.

Wilson shook his head “that’s definitely too hard for a little kid.”

“I’m not little, and I’ve hunted way more Koalefants than the two of you combined. Remember, I’ve been here for eight years, I _know_ how to deal with Koalefants” Wendy insisted.

Wilson looked at Willow for some assistance, he was not skilled at the art of arguing with another person, and she was much better at socialization with him, so he supposed that she could help him out.

“How about this, you two can find the koalefant, and then you come back to me and Wilson so that the four of us can deal with it together.” Willow offered.

“Willow! Come on!” Wilson complained, he was quite surprised that she wasn’t entirely siding with him.

“Relax, Wilson. Looking for a koalefant isn’t gonna hurt either of them” Willow said.

“Maybe it will, if Wendy isn’t careful, she could freeze to death” Wilson countered.

Willow turned to Wendy “do you have grass and logs and stuff with you?”

“I do, along with the heavy burden of living” Wendy replied.

“And, you know how to make a campfire, right?” Willow asked.

“I’m even more familiar with the craft as I am with the feeling of death” Wendy responded.

“Okay, I think it’s safe to say that she won’t freeze to death” Willow said, turning back to Wilson.

“Wait, are we just going to ignore the concerning things that she just said? Or is there certain socialization rules regarding this that I am unaware of?” Wilson questioned.

“I mean, I’ve just kinda gotten used to her saying morbid stuff” Willow said with a shrug.

“I’ve been told that I tend to get more morose in the mornings” Wendy explained “I’m more of a night owl than a morning bird.”

“I will never understand children” Wilson grumbled.

“Can Abby and I leave already? Searching for koalefant tracks is much more difficult during dusk” Wendy said.

Wilson grumbled in defeat “Yes, but be careful.”

“I’ll try to be, but death, like a lightning bolt, can strike us at any time” Wendy commented as she exited the base.

Neither of the twins knew how suspicious piles of dirt would be affected if they were covered in winters blanketing snow. They expected it to be a lot harder to find any trace of a koalefant, however winter surprisingly made hunting the beast much easier than anticipated.

Sitting in front of Wendy was a small hill of dirt that seemed to be unaffected by the soft puffs of white coldness falling in every other spot but the one where the dirt covered footprint sat, causing the brown to send out amongst the pearly white ground.

Wendy looked at her sibling “Either the evil tall man is being unusually merciful, or this is a trick of some sort.”

Abigail nodded, and by the look she gave Wendy, the morbid child knew which one of the two reasons that she thought to be most likely.

“I agree, this is probably a trick” Wendy monotony commented.

The twins stared at the dirt pile for a few moments until Wendy said “we don’t have much to loose.”

“Oooh ooOoOh” Abigail said with a nod of her ghostly head.

Wendy bent down and brushed the dirt away, revealing a large circular track with three chubby toes pointing in the direction East of the twins ( right of the twins ).

“Lets see if this leads to our deaths” Wendy said as she walked in the direction where the tracks toes were facing.

Abigail floated to the side of Wendy, her eyes scanned the snow for any sign of the elusive koalefant.

Wendy spoke up once again “Abby, why do you think that the evil tall man sent us to live with Willow and Wilson?”

“Ooh OoOoh.”

“Was that an ‘I don’t know’?”

Abigail nodded, her pretty red flower bouncing with her head as she bobbed it.

“Do you suppose that it’s because he wanted us to get attached to them so that he could kill them and happily watch as we suffer?”

After a slight pause, Abigail nodded once more.

“Its a good thing that we won’t be staying here long enough to get that attached to them, then. I hate his guts, why must he put us through this torturous pain?”

“Ooh OoOoh.”

“I’m guessing that was another ‘I don’t know’.”

Abigail, as expected, nodded.

“One day, he’ll get what’s coming to him. He’ll become one of us, and he’ll be forced to survive in this hellish place of his own creation.”

Abigail fiercely nodded, she wished for the same thing as her sibling.

“Goodness knows he deserves worse. Even I enjoy to see other animals suffer, but to the extent that we, our best friend, Willow, Wilson, and everybody else in this world, has suffered, is far beyond inhumane.”

Abigail sadly nodded and sorrowfully said “oOooh Oh OooOooh.”

“I guess thats what everyone here deserves for making a deal with the devil…except you of course, you were just apart of the deal.”

Abigail nodded in agreement.

The two stopped conversing as they stopped at another suspicious pile of dirt.

There was little logic as to how hunting worked in the constant. 

Firstly, the only way to actually find a koalefant was to uncover its tracks, Wendy, Abigail, and their former traveling companion had tried multiple times to find a koalefant without actually uncovering its tracks, however they’re attempts were ridiculously unsuccessful. So unsuccessful, that the trio had decided that there was some kind of magic was at play involving the meaty species. 

Secondly, why was there only one footprint per each dozen yards? Wouldn’t all of the beasts footprints leave a mark or was the koalefant purposefully shoving one foot into the ground harsher than its other feet? And, if so, why?

Thirdly, there was a perfect mound of dirt on top of each track. One might suppose that the beast put the dirt upon the track, however Wendy could now see that that wasn’t the case. Where would the koalefant get more dirt from if the entirety of the ground, besides the dirt pile for some reason, was covered in snow?

What sense did any of that make?

It made no sense. It was nonsense. But, it was nonsense that the twins were experts at.

The sisters got rather far along their first trail until they couldn’t find another pile of dirt amongst the snowy white ground.

Wendy sighed “It’s a dead end, this trail leads nowhere.”

Abigail grumpily said “OooOoh Ooh.”

Dead ends occurred frequently too, sometimes you could follow a trail and you’d get quite far, and then the next footprint led to nothing. However, you were never at a total loss, a new pile of dirt would show up eventually if you were to wander around a bit more.

Like anticipated, the twins soon found another heap of dirt, Wendy uncovered it, and they once again followed the trail of footprints. Unfortunately, they didn’t get too far along the trail before they discovered that it too, was a dead end.

The siblings wandered around aimlessly until they found another mysterious clump of dirt on the ground. Wendy once again dusted it off and they followed the direction where the footprint’s toes pointed them. 

Although the trail was rather long, the twins were rewarded by their efforts.

“I can sense the beasts presence.” 

The pair followed the last footprint in the trail to see a majestic, blue, koalefant standing idly by in the pine forest that they found themselves in.

Abigail happily said “OooOOoh!”

“Are you remarking on its new color?”

Abigail joyfully nodded.

“I like the new color too, it looks like the same shade of blue as a dead corpse that was stowed away in an ice box.”

Abigail knew that her sister had never seen any alive living thing stored away in any sort of ice box. She was just being morbid.

To describe a koalefant, one might find it useful to compare it to the two creatures that the evil tall man, otherwise known as Maxwell, had based it upon: the koala and the elephant. The majority of the winter koalefant was covered in thick, pale blue, fur, except for its face, trunk, and the insides of its ears. The cute animal had ears that resembled a koala’s ears, however these ears were gigantic like an elephant’s ears. The koalefant also had the size, the feet, and the trunk of an elephant too. Last and probably least, the meaty animal had six tiny horns on its face, two of these horns jutted out of its maw like tusks, however the other four horns were just a few inches above its eyes, making them look like eyebrows on the koalefants large forehead.

“I have no intention of going back to the base to recruit the help of the adults. Let’s murder it together.”

Abigail nodded in agreement, she knew Wendy well enough to expect this sort of behavior from her.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Abigail circled around the beast from the cover of the forest pines, making sure that she was a safe distance away from it, lest it notice her to early.

Wendy took her position too, a spot right behind a nearby tree.

Wendy’s eyes locked onto Abigail. Her ghostly twin nodded at her, she knew where Wendy was. Knowing each other’s locations was imperative to the KAIS ( Koalefant Attack Initiating Strategy ).

KAIS was rather simple, Abigail would chase the large mammal near the tree that Wendy was hiding behind, then Wendy would jump out from behind the tree and would attack the beast, initiating the battle.

Once Abigail aligned herself with the koalefant and Wendy’s tree, she floated full speed towards the mammal, which admittedly, wasn’t that fast. The beast quickly took notice of the little ghost girl, and as anticipated, ran away from her. Wendy could hear the beast nearing her tree. Her pale hands gripped her tentacle spike tightly and she readied herself for the attack.

The beast ran pat Wendy’s pine tree, and as it did so, a horrible pain coursed through its body. Then, it swerved the direction it was heading in towards Wendy. 

The little girl could see the furiousness in its eyes, it was determined to kill her, but Wendy knew that if anyone were to die from this fight, then it would be the koalefant, not her.

Wendy stood completely still as it charged at her, but at the last moment, Wendy dodged out of the way, causing the koalefant to slam head first into the tree.

The animal seemed to be disoriented from charging into the sturdy pine, so the twins decided to use its weakened state to their advantage.

With Abigail’s ghostly abilities, she made small gashes suddenly appear on the beasts body, unfortunately, it had yet to be dusk, so her attacks weren’t as pain inflicting as the ghostly little girl would’ve liked them to be. Meanwhile, Wendy slammed her tentacle spike into the koalefants hide a couple of times. The beast trumpeted in agony. It proceeded to push itself up onto its feet and swing its trunk towards Wendy, however the little girl was a lot faster than it, and a lot more flexible too. Currently, Wendy’s tentacle spike was jabbed into the angry animals flesh, so she tightened her grip on her weapon and speedily front-flipped over the koalefant, pulling her spike out of the beast as she moved, causing her to successfully dodge the animal’s attack.

Then, the koalefant whipped its head around to face the twins, and again, charged at them, thrashing its trunk around wildly as they ran away from it. 

Abigail knew that she couldn’t move as quickly as her sibling, and that the fast animal would soon catch up to her, but she also realized that given the choice, it would probably go after Wendy instead of her. So, she began to float away from Wendy, and liked she had hoped, the koalefant chose to continue chasing after her sibling Wendy instead of her.

Wendy noticed Abigail doing this, and came up with a plan. Wendy turned in her run back towards Abigail, and ran to the side of her sibling.

Then, Wendy yelled “attack it from behind!”

Abigail understood her sister’s plan, and as the Koalefant passed by her, she attacked its backside, causing a blood red wound to appear on its hide and dye its pretty blue fur crimson.

The beast turned around and trumpeted in fury, then it swung its trunk at Abigail.

The young specter winced in pain, even if she had no visible wounds from the attack, it still felt quite painful, and was damaging to her ghostly spirit.

The dangerous animal prepared itself to hit Abigail once again but it stopped when a young blonde girl jumped onto its back.

Wendy quickly pulled herself towards the beasts adorable large head, and she proceeded to to hold her tentacle spike to the underside of the creatures throat.

Unfortunately for Wendy, the koalefant tried to throw her off of itself, causing Wendy to accidentally drop her weapon.

Unfortunately for the koalefant, Wendy had a strong grip on its head, preventing it from throwing her off.

Abigail used these few moments where the animal was distracted to sneak behind it and attack its cute, stubby, legs.

The beast once again trumpeted in pain. It knew it needed to attack somebody, either the enemy on its head, or the onslaughter who was currently harming it.

It chose Abigail.

Soon, Abigail was trying everything in her power to stay behind the legs of the beast, as she couldn’t outrun the animal, and it couldn’t reach her with its trunk if she was behind it. However, the koalefant moved itself in order to reach her, so she had to move with it, a task that was easier said than done.

Wendy didn’t know what to do to help her beloved sibling, she no longer had her trusty tentacle spike with her, and if she tried to jump off of the koalefant then it could easily hit her, and being injured certainly wasn’t good for a fight. So, Wendy decided that she needed to harm the creature without the use of a tentacle spike.

Suddenly, the morbid child got a gory idea.

Whilst the large mammal was focused on her sister, Wendy’s left hand reached for its eyeball, and like a scene from out of a horror movie, she jabbed her fingers into the edges of its eye socket. Wendy pushed her fingers behind its eye, and she proceeded to tear the eye away from the animal’s face, until the veins that held onto it gave a gruesome, and bloody, snap. The creature trumpeted loudly at the pain and at the loss of half of its sight. Wendy’s right hand reached for its other eye, if she could entirely blind it, then she and her sibling would have a much easier time killing it. But, all of a sudden, the Koalefant slapped its trunk onto her right wrist, and an audible *crack* sound could be heard, Wendy screamed, and immediately pulled her hand away from its face. 

Wendy’s face scrunched up in pain from the horrible ache of her new injury. There wasn’t any bleeding, so she figured that the koalefant must’ve broken her wrist. The little girl tried her best to ignore her throbbing injury, but ignoring a freshly broken bone was very difficult to do.

Clearly, she needed to try something else to kill the troublesome animal.

Wendy got another idea.

She reached into her pocket and brought out a coil of rope. 

Yesterday, to pass the night by, and to prevent herself from accidentally dozing off to sleep, and thus having the same nightmare again, Wendy had woven several ropes and straw rolls, only stopping when she realized just how much grass she had used up. 

As though she was making a lasso, Wendy made a loop at the end of the rope. She proceeded to throw it over the head of the beast, allowing the rope to slink down under the creature’s neck. She tightened the rope, and tied it like a noose around the creature’s throat. With her left hand, Wendy held the end of the rope and jumped off of the koalefant’s back, going through Abigail’s ghostly figure before landing on the snow coated ground.

Wendy proceeded to pull the rope with all her frail, ten-year-old, might.

At first, Abigail was confused by what her sister was doing, but she suddenly understood. The little apparition floated in front of the creature. The beast was now being choked and it was thoroughly confused, but the Koalefant was quite certain of one thing: one of its attackers was floating right in front of it. It swung its trunk towards Abigail, but she quickly moved upwards and forwards, the trunk followed her, it was beginning to stand on its injured hind legs to reach her, the beast was determined to hit Abigail. It was so determined to do so, that it didn’t realize that it was applying a lot of pressure on its two wounded back legs, it was looking upwards, and it was being tugged with a rope around its neck by someone behind it.

It fell backwards, nearly crushing Wendy if she hadn’t dodged out of its way in time. The little girl dropped the rope and lunged for her tentacle spike that was a few feet away from her. She rushed towards the creature, and with her uninjured, and dominant, left hand, she slammed her tentacle spike into the Koalefant’s stomach. It trumpeted in agony as Wendy dragged her weapon across its flesh, and as she pushed it farther into the wound. 

The poor animal desperately tried to roll itself over into a standing position, unfortunately for it, it couldn’t. Abigail aided her sister in the destruction of the beast’s organs, it was a cruel, and horribly painful way to die, but Wendy and Abigail had used far worse killing methods on some of its fellow Koalefants. Soon enough, the Koalefant was dead.

Wendy sat down and inspected her injury. Her wrist was bent at an unnatural angle, and it already looked swollen. 

Yeah, it’s definitely broken, Wendy thought with a sigh.

With her left hand, she reached inside of her pocket and brought out some of her few remaining tufts of grass, then she wrapped them carefully, yet tightly, around her wrist. The makeshift cast would have to do for now. Her eyes travelled back to the dead creature laying just in front of her. Wendy hoped that she wouldn’t get too bloody when she was harvesting it’s meat. 

Wendy suddenly realized how cold she was. The little girl reached inside of her pockets and brought out her last three tufts of grass and a couple of logs, and with these materials, she crafted a campfire to keep herself warm and toasty. Wendy could feel the thermal stone inside of her pocket adjusting to the hotter temperature. While she warmed herself up, Wendy proceeded to collect the resources she needed from the koalefants corpse.

Half an hour later, The beast’s meat, along with its trunk, was stored in Wendy’s pockets. The child pushed her now blood-covered hands into the snow, it made her hands fairly cold, but being clean was growing on Wendy, she was enjoying not always having the metallic smell of blood in her nose. The snow became liquidy as she held it near the fire, and soon enough it was slush. The little girl proceeded to rub it on her arms and hands. With that, Wendy traversed back through the woods and back to base.

As she traveled, her feet sank into the snowy ground, causing her to stomp everywhere she went. Doing so made Wendy feel cold like a dead body. 

The nearby pine trees were coated in snow, it was as if they were wearing jackets made of the cold white stuff. Wendy and Abigail passed by some ponds, they were frozen over with cold, hard, beautiful, ice. 

Wendy recalled how as children she and Abigail had loved winter, those times of innocence were fond memories to Wendy. 

Wendy looked up at Abigail and asked “Do you remember our winters together, Abby?” 

Abigail nodded, a pleasant twinkle in her eyes. 

“Its such a shame that they had to end” Wendy commented with a sigh.

Abigail sorrowfully nodded.

After a few seconds, Wendy said “Abby, I’m having a hard time not thinking about them.”

Abigail looked at her sister with a sad expression.

“I wonder how long it will take me to stop having that nightmare again, to repress those memories once more. It’s so unfortunate that the slightest thought of those previous times can cause me to have to rid myself of sleep for a few days. I really wish that Willow hadn’t brought up the stuff about the healing salve, or this problem wouldn’t have occurred.”

Wendy was silent for a few moments before she continued to vent to her sister.

“Whenever I think about any of those happy moments that we shared with them, I remember their blood covered corpse, I remember those tears that we shared with one another, and It’s so hard not to blame it all on myself. I know that the evil tall man was the real culprit behind their death, but…I failed to protect them, and now, we may never be reunited.”

Wendy sighed again.

“Sometimes I wonder if the two of us ever should’ve met them. If we didn’t meet them then neither of us would feel this horrible pain and longing in our hearts. But, then I remember that without them I wouldn’t see much of a reason to go on. As you know, the only reason that I go through all of these worlds is to get them back, I wouldn’t care about survival if I didn’t have them to survive for. If we hadn’t met them then I would be so desperate just to die, and finally become a ghost and join you, but they’re alive, and they wouldn’t want to be a ghost forever, they’d want to be alive, so I want to be alive too, for them.”

Despite Wendy’s expression looking only slightly sad, silent tears were running down her cheeks.

“Its crazy to think that after all these years I still haven’t lost hope that I would one day see them and their big goofy smile again. Have you any hope left, sister?”

Abigail fiercely nodded and said “OoOoOOh!”

“That’s good to hear.”

Eventually, the pair arrived back at their now snow coated base. Inside, they heard the adults conversing, however they weren’t talking loud enough for either one of the twins to make out what they were saying. The children stepped inside of the base to see Willow tying some honey poultices around Wilson’s arm.

If Wendy had actually cared about Wilson’s health and safety, then she would’ve asked them about why Wilson needed a honey poultice wrapped around his appendage. But, Wendy didn’t give a gobbler about Wilson and his wellbeing. However, Abigail did.

“OooOoh ooOh?”

Willow and Wilson suddenly looked at the twins.

“Goodness! You scared me!” Wilson said with a chuckle.

“Hey you two, Wilson managed to get himself injured, so only three of us are gonna fight the koalefant, but I think that’ll be a fairly good amount of people for a battle” Willow explained.

Wendy stopped walking, turned towards the two charcoal-haired adults, rummaged around in her pockets, and brought out a blue koalefant trunk.

The adults eyes grew wide.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that Abby and I had the situation under control” Wendy stated as she walked to the base’s singular ice box to shove the beast’s meat into.

“But you’re a little kid, and she’s dead…” Wilson murmured.

“And, you’re a feeble scientist with a ridiculous haircut” Wendy pointed out.

With his hand that Willow wasn’t attending to, Wilson protectively touched his three pronged do “its not ridiculous, its just…really…fancy. Besides, I don’t see how my hair makes a fight with a koalefant any more difficult.”

“Actually, it would make the fight easier, as the koalefant would be too busy laughing to attack you” Willow said, purposefully not looking at Wilson “sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

Abigail giggled, causing incomprehensible ghostly sounds to pour out of her nonexistent mouth.

Wendy proceeded to shut the door of the icebox, and looked upwards to stare at the sun that was preparing to fall under the horizon.

 _It seems as though my first day of winter is nearly over_ , Wendy thought to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like writing fight scenes, although it admittedly isn't as fun to edit them. Also, while I was editing this chapter, I realized that in a world's first winter, the Deerclops doesn't show up until day 30, not day 23, so I'm gonna have to change things up a bit with my timeline.
> 
> paperGrape, on chapter 1
> 
> I absolutely love Wendy's personality in your work. Reviving her twin was absolutely heartbreaking, especially if you've done the same thing in-game.
> 
> I'm only in Chapter 1, but I already love it so far. <3
> 
> Thanks so much! And, I hope that I didn't deviate too much from her personality at the end of chapter four.
> 
> paperGrape, on chapter 2
> 
> Ooof course Willow sleeps super close by the fire.. X"D
> 
> I'm glad you liked that little detail, Willow's just crazy like that.


	7. Chapter 7 - Snow Person - Day 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is sorta a filler chapter, it explains a fair bit of my fanfic's version of Wilson's lonely past, however Wilson and Wendy making a snow person doesn't contribute to the plot of this story at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for the long wait!
> 
> I used the following source for exact diameter and carrot measurements regarding snow people.
> 
> ILMM. “Engineering the Perfect Snowman - ILMM.” Medium, Medium, 27 Dec. 2016, medium.com/@ILMM_Magazine/engineering-the-perfect-snowman-ilmm-e32a0b89e2b4.

Wendy found herself sleepily waving good-bye to the nice woman in pig tails, and although Abigail hadn’t any hands, Wendy was sure that if her ghostly sister did have them, than she would be waving good-bye, too.

According to Willow, because Wilson was wounded, and because the twins were just children, they would both be given the task of making sure that each other stayed out of trouble. 

However, Wendy wrongfully suspected that the real reason behind Willow telling the three to spend some ‘quality time together’ ( in a friendilial/familial manner ) was because the young woman was most likely getting annoyed with her.

“So, what do kids like the two of you want to play?” Wilson awkwardly asked.

“What my twin and I consider to be fun very rarely overlaps these days” Wendy replied.

Wilson stiffly nodded, then, as if he had rehearsed saying it, in a flat voice he said “I was thinking that it would be a good idea to use this snowy season to our advantage, what say the two of you?”

Wendy looked up at Abigail, the ghostly little girl nodded, prompting Wendy to look at Wilson once again and say “sure.”

“Okay, good” Wilson murmured with obvious relief in his voice. “What game would the two of you desire to play with snow?”

“I would like to locate some rabbits, stuff their heads into the snow, and watch as they suffocate to death” Wendy morbidly responded.

Wilson awkwardly scratched the back of his neck and said “maybe something less…death involving.”

“Digging snow-graves is somewhat less death involving” Wendy stated “at least, nobody _actually_ dies.”

“How about we do a traditional snow game, like building a snow person?” Wilson offered.

Abigail enthusiastically nodded, truth be told, she had forgotten long ago what ‘building a snow person’ was, but it most likely didn’t involve anything depressing enough to severely dampen her and Wilson’s mood, and encourage negative behaviors from Wendy, so she was in total support of it.

Upon seeing that Abigail really wanted to play this game, Wendy nodded in agreement too.

Wilson smiled, and was about to speak once more when Wendy cut him off before he could utter a sound.

Wendy commented “we don’t know how to play this game, or at least, I don’t.”

“Oh” the introverted scientist said “well, it’s pretty simple-”

Wendy interrupted Wilson “does it have to do with dying? Death is pretty simple.”

Wilson flashed Wendy a look of concern before explaining how one would go about making a snow person.

“First things first, we ought to roll up some balls of snow” the funky haired man explained. 

The twins still looked confused, or rather Abigail still looked confused, Wendy’s facial expression always seemed to depict that she was both miserable and bored.

Wilson scooped up a handful of snow, compacted it into a spherical shape, and said “we just need to make three different sizes of snow balls, one that has a diameter of eighty centimeters, another with a diameter of fifty centimeters, and a third with a diameter of thirty centimeters. After we’re finished with that, I’ll tell the two of you the second step.”

The siblings nodded, neither of them bothered to inquire into what exactly diameters or centimeters were.

The siblings watched as Wilson rolled his small snowball on the ground, letting it accumulate more and more snow, therefore causing it to grow bigger.

Wendy crouched down on the cold, white, fluffy, ground, and with her left, uninjured, hand, she picked up a fist sized clump of snow, then she compacted it in her hands, letting it form into a spherical shape. The little girl proceeded to roll the snowball across the snow coated ground, watching as it got noticeably bigger.

It didn’t take long for Wilson to tell Wendy that her snow-sphere was big enough.

“Alright, now we just need a snow ball with a diameter of eighty centimeters. Would you mind helping me, Wendy?” Wilson asked.

The morbid little girl nodded and scooped up a small snowball before walking towards Wilson and crouching down next to him. Then, with only her left hand, she proceeded to roll it across the snowy plain, with Wilson walking right beside her. Eventually, when the snow ball was big enough, Wilson joined her, and added considerable speed to the creation of the large snow sphere. But, suddenly, Wilson stopped rolling it.

“Believe it or not, it’s more efficient for you to use both of your hands in the creation of this snowball” Wilson commented with a friendly, and slightly amused, smile.

Wendy looked up at Wilson and said “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?” Wilson asked, his smile turning into a curious frown. “There isn’t any reason for you to not want to be more efficient, at least, not from what I can tell.”

Wendy sighed, she hadn’t the motivation, nor the energy, to pretend to Wilson that her injury wasn’t there. The little girl gently, slowly, and carefully, picked up her right, broken, wrist with her left hand.

“I did not come out of my battle with the Koalefant unharmed” Wendy said “please don’t tell Willow.”

Frightened concern immediately formed on Wilson’s face “that’s broken, right?”

Wendy nodded.

“Lets go inside, I’ll prepare you a proper cast” Wilson said.

The pair walked inside of their base. Wilson motioned to one of the log seats surrounding their fire-pit. So, Wendy sat down upon it, with Abigail hovering by her side. Wilson rummaged through one of their chests, pulling out several more tufts of grass. Then, he walked over to Wendy and sat beside her on her log.

Wilson motioned for Wendy to give him her arm, she complied with his request and said “please be gentle.”

Wilson nodded “I’ll be as gentle as I can possibly be.”

As Wilson removed Wendy’s old grass cast he stated “no offense, but your current cast is absolutely terrible.”

Wendy’s eyes travelled to her cast that was being carefully removed from her wrist by Wilson.

The injured child replied “no offense has been taken.”

“Honestly, how do you typically deal with injuries like this?” Wilson questioned.

“Usually, I go to a field of flowers and ask Abby to supply me with butterfly wings, occasionally I use the assistance of a life-giving amulet, and sometimes I sustain my broken bones until I die” Wendy explained.

“Anyways, it still is quite amazing that you and Abigail managed to kill a Koalefant all by yourselves and somehow only managed to sustain a wrist injury” Wilson stated. “I went mining for _ice_ and I received way worse injuries than you.”

“What exactly were you wounded by? I never bothered to ask yesterday” Wendy inquired.

“I was onslaughted by a pack of very angry Pengulls, because I accidentally stepped on one of their eggs” Wilson explained with a shameful frown.

“We all make mistakes, we all get unlucky, and we all have our flaws” Wendy comfortingly said.

Wilson chuckled “You’re right, besides, perfection makes people boring anyways.”

Once Wilson removed Wendy’s cast from her injury, he carefully, yet securely, wrapped the grass that he had obtained from one of their base’s chests, around Wendy’s forearm, wrist, and the palm of her hand, several times, eventually creating a thick and sturdy grass cast.

“Now, do you two want to get back to making a snow person?” Wilson asked.

Wendy sighed “at least it’s something to fill the void of endless sorrow known as my existence.”

“Thats the spirit!” Wilson awkwardly said, trying, and failing, to sound cheerful.

Eventually, the pair had made their third snow sphere and had piled the balls of snow atop one another.

“Now, we decorate it” Wilson explained.

“Why are we going to decorate _this_?” Wendy asked as she pointed to the odd snowy creation standing right in front of her.

“Well, these snow-spheres sort of resemble a person” Wilson pointed out each of the snowballs, starting with the smallest one on the top of the snow person “ _this_ is the snow person’s head, _this_ is their torso, and _these_ are their legs.”

“I have yet to meet anyone with legs that look like that” Wendy bluntly stated.

Wilson stared at them before saying “I suppose you could think of this bottom sphere as a long skirt.”

“Fair enough, I’ll accept that” Wendy said “just as I’ll accept the warm embrace of death” Then, the morose child questioned “will we decorate this snow person with organs? Could we shove organs inside of its snow body? Can we pretend that they’re coming out of it? Like somebody used their hands to rip them out?”

Wilson looked horrified. Abigail simply looked a bit annoyed.

The ghostly little girl said “oh” ( no ).

The scientist said “absolutely not!”

Wendy asked “then what do we decorate it with?”

A slight smile reappeared on Wilson’s face “follow me, and I’ll show you.”

The twins followed Wilson and watched as he grabbed some charcoal from one of their ice boxes.

Upon obtaining charcoal, Wilson said “Alright! Let’s do some decorating!”

The young sisters trailed behind Wilson as he walked back towards their snow person. In Wendy’s eyes, the mass of white spheres sitting peaceful atop one another sort of resembled a spider den.

Wendy’s frown deepened, she could feel the happy memories rushing back, but before they could turn sad and bitter, like a bad aftertaste, she succeeded in pushing them out of her head by gussying her mind with the task at hand.

“So, what do we do now?” Wendy hurriedly asked.

“We need to put these pieces of charcoal” Wilson motioned towards two pieces of charcoal that he had placed in the palms of his hands “into the front of the smallest snow sphere. They’ll act like the snow person’s eyes.” Wilson looked back at Wendy “would you like to do the honors of putting them on the snow person?”

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Wendy looked up at Abigail for her opinion.

Abigail, happy to be acknowledged, spun around in a circle and said “oOh! ooOoh!”

Wendy sighed, and dropped her head down to face Wilson “yes, I’ll put the charcoal eyes on the snow person.”

The little girl held out her hands to the scientist. Wilson turned over his palms and two pieces of burnt-up wood landed in her hands.

Wendy commented “charcoal looks like creature’s bones after they’ve been struck to death by lightning.”

Wilson mumbled “actually, your kind of right…”

Wendy stepped directly in front of the snow person, she went on her tippy-toes, and extended her arms up into the air.

She was so close to reaching the top of the snow persons face, yet she was too short.

“Life” Wendy spoke with a clear, monotone, voice ”is cruel to me.”

Abigail rolled her ghostly eyes.

“Do you want assistance?” Wilson asked.

“With ending my life or with these pieces of charcoal?” Wendy questioned.

Wilson stated “the latter” then, he said in a hushed voice “obviously.”

Wendy sighed “sure.”

In an appropriate, safe, and purely friendilial manner, Wilson placed his hands under Wendy’s armpits and lifted her up so that her head was level with the snow person’s head.

Wendy wasn’t expecting this sort of ‘assistance’, she thought that he was just going to put the burnt-up tree body parts into the snow person’s head for her. Frankly, Wendy didn’t exactly like being held by a stranger.

Okay, maybe Wilson wasn’t a _stranger_ , but she didn’t know him all that well.

But, Wendy didn’t care enough to complain about the situation. And, it was admittedly quite enjoyable to feel like she was a lot taller than she actually was…but Wendy would never tell anybody else that, except for maybe Abigail.

Wilson suddenly spoke “this isn’t hurting your back injury, is it?”

Wendy shook her head “No.”

Wendy gently shoved the pieces of charcoal into the snow persons head, careful to not push them too hard, lest she accidentally cause the snowy head to topple off of the snow person, even though Wendy wasn’t all that against decapitating it.

After the snowy figure received two, black, un-blinking, eyes, Wendy said “I’m done. You can put me down now.”

Wilson carefully lowered her down to the ground, Wendy extended her thin little legs, and once she had been lowered down enough, the bottom of her Mary Janes hit the snow coated ground, prompting Wilson to let go of her.

“How is your back injury doing anyways? I presume that Willow has been assisting you with your recovery?” Wilson inquired.

“My wound is healing up quite nicely, and, yes, your assumption is correct, Willow has been checking up on me and has been tending to my spider bite” Wendy replied.

“Terribly sorry about forgetting about that, you see, I’m not exactly used to caring for other people” Wilson apologetically said.

“I blame you not. I suppose that you’re new to this entire ordeal with worrying about another person in the constant besides yourself, are you?”

“You’re correct, I met Willow a bit less than two weeks ago, and other than a small run-in with a couple of killer bees, she hasn’t been injured.” After a slight pause, Wilson said “actually, believe it or not, before I was lured into this wretched wilderness, I lived alone in a small shack in the middle of nowhere. I’ve lived for about a decade without needing to worry about another human being. I never did realize how lonely I was until I discovered how eager I was to have a conversation with the constant’s local pigs for reasons entirely unrelated to science.”

“That’s impossible” Wendy stated “nobody can go an entire decade without conversing with somebody else, they’d go mad.”

“I sort of did go mad” Wilson admitted “I talked to myself, I named and had conversations with my furniture, and I even tried to teach a raccoon that accidentally got stuck in my house English.”

Despite the fact that Wilson suffered through intense, very unhealthy, loneliness that probably caused poor the poor scientist’s mental state to suffer horribly, Abigail couldn’t help but let slip a small giggle at the idea of Wilson trying to teach a raccoon how to talk.

Luckily, Wilson also found it to be fairly comical, he smiled and said “I really did go a bit bonkers, didn’t I?”

“Yes, it’s safe to say that you did go insane” after a short pause, Wendy said “does that mean that there’s nobody back on Earth to mourn your supposed demise?”

Abigail’s amused expression immediately vanished. Although, when she was still alive, Abigail had the ability to make anybody smile, her twin seemed to have the ability to make anybody frown.

Fortunately, Wilson didn’t seem to be bothered by her statement “yes, it’s quite likely that nobody will do, or has done, any sort of mourning. In fact, they might not have realized that I’m even gone in the first place, since I payed off the money my house. Thank you for the observation, I hadn’t thought about that before.”

“Your welcome” Wendy responded.

“Alright, well now we should go and get a carrot for our snow persons nose” Wilson explained.

“Most of our carrots are stale” Wendy commented.

“I am aware of that, but it’s not like we’re making gingerbread house. We aren’t going to eat the snow person afterwards” Wilson replied with a small chuckle. After a few moments of confused silence from the twins, Wilson spoke up again “a ginger bread house is-actually, nevermind.

They went inside of the house with Wilson leading the way towards their ice box, and with Abigail trailing closely behind Wendy in the back. Wilson opened up their ice box and was hit by the scent of various different food sources that were all shoved in the same vicinity as one another. He grimaced in displeasure and reached inside of the metallic container that was filled to the brim with food.

 _I must make a second ice box,_ Wilson promised to himself, _and I ought to make a third crockpot while I’m at it._

The scientist pulled out an armful of stale carrots.

Wilson didn’t exactly care for the twins. Okay, well maybe he didn’t exactly care for Wendy, her nice sister, Abigail, was fairly tolerable. However, the siblings addition to their base was undeniably of great aid to their stock of food. As it turns out, being a nomad like Wendy and Abigail had its very apparent benefits, one of which was that starvation wasn’t that much of a threat at all, and when they joined their comfy little base, the twins had supplied the adults with a ton of berries, morsels, butterfly wings, honey, and carrots, this was greatly helpful to them as they had both spent a lot of their time advancing their base and getting winter clothing rather than obtaining food.

Although Wilson was well aware that the best rounded length for a carrot nose on a snow person was four centimeters long, he didn’t exactly have a ruler, and it wouldn’t make a difference anyway as Maxwell had designed nearly everything in the constant to be an exact replica of the original design. For example, their were four sizes of a tree in the constant, including the sapling size, and at each of the four levels, the trees looked exactly the same, the same rule applied to carrots, gobblers, lureplants, and nearly anything one could think of that resided in the constant. It had taken Wilson only a few hours upon entrance into the constant to realize this, and at the time he chalked it up to him either having a very detailed hallucination or to him being in a human-made wilderness with a very concerning lack of variation in the genetics of its local species. After seeing the constant’s ridiculously large arachnids for the first time, he decided that it was most likely the former.

An eerie voice broke the scientist’s peaceful recollection “It would be fun if these carrots were actually alive, then we could pretend that we were selecting one of them to die.” Wendy gave a slight, creepy, smile “it would be enjoyable to watch them each struggle with the decision of whether or not to volunteer to die or to let one of their family members meet a gruesome demise. Of course, everyone would choose the latter, but then the survivors would be tormented by the guilt of that traumatic event for the rest of their pathetic existence, and they’ll live a meaningless life filled with sorrow and regret.” The little girl let out a small chuckle “and the funny part is, they would all eventually die anyways. In the end, the one that we would select to die would be the only merciful one, as they lived the most fulfilling, happy, and unregretful life before their death.”

“I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear you just say that” Wilson replied as he handed Wendy one of the carrots and put the rest back into the ice box.

“You’re just ignoring the truth then” Wendy said as her malicious, and creepy, expression turned into a seemingly emotionless, and unreadable, expression.

“What truth?” Wilson questioned.

“The truth that both life and death cause suffering and pain, unless you separate yourself from others and get attached to no one” Wendy replied. “You’re lucky that you haven’t any strong emotional ties to anybody, that’s what makes you truly free.”

Wilson frowned, in a way, she was right.

Wendy looked up at her sister “if Abby didn’t love me, then she would be free and not tied down to her flower. If I didn’t love Abby, then I wouldn’t have to suffer every day knowing that I can never see her cheerful smile again.” Wendy looked back at Wilson “you are the most fortunate person I have ever met, being lonely is but a small sacrifice for never experiencing the pain that comes with loving someone.”

Wilson went silent.

She wasn’t wrong.

Wilson Percival Higgsburry didn’t have a very loving family, no, not at all. He had been born into a rich family, and from a young age, his parents had wanted him to become a doctor like his older brothers. And although Wilson really did love the field of science, he preferred to explore and discover new life-changing scientific revelations, he didn’t care to repeatedly practice the same, or at least, quite similar scientific tasks over and over again to accomplish the same routine goal of helping somebody survive. After going through less then a year of intense schooling involving various medicinal practices, Wilson informed his parents that he never wanted to become a doctor and that he would rather invest himself in the general studies of science rather than limit himself to just one area of science. Wilson’s parents responded by refusing to provide him with any of the money that they had saved up for college, causing Wilson to have to drop out of school in order to get by. So, Wilson gathered up his own funds and bought himself a cheap, run-down, isolated, house in the middle of nowhere. He had enough money saved up to pay for various expenses and for some scientific equipment. Wilson sent some friendly letters to a few of his family members during this time. The few replying letters that he did receive were quite mean and showed obvious disapproval regarding Wilson disobeying the desires of his parents and so ‘dumbly’ deciding to not pursue an excellent career in medicine. Upon receiving these unkind letters, Wilson determined that he was better off alienated from his family.

However, this meant that Wilson didn’t have anyone for him to love, nor did he have anyone to love him.

“I think I want to be alone for a while” Wilson softly announced.

The two twins stared silently at Wilson as he exited the base.

After Wilson had walked a considerable distance away from the base, Wendy whispered to Abigail “I think I went too far.”

Abigail nodded.

“I don’t know what I should do.”

Abigail didn’t respond, she had some ideas, however she was well aware that it would be a pointless attempt to try to convey them to Wendy, as her sister couldn’t understand her ghostly murmurs and all.

After a few moments, Wendy spoke again.

“I think I know what I need to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I’d be lying if I said I had a good excuse as to why it took me about three weeks to update this fan-fiction. The beginning of this chapter was admittedly rather boring for me to write, and I ended up actually writing about 3/4ths of this chapter in these past three days. Hopefully this next chapter will come out soon, but I won’t make any promises. Okay, so time for some maybe good news and some maybe bad news.
> 
> Maybe Good News
> 
> Its summer break now so I’ll hopefully have more time to write.
> 
> Maybe Bad News
> 
> I’m getting an SAT math tutor and I don’t know how much time that will take away from me. My mother is hopefully going to teach me some a lot more chores this summer in order to prepare me for one day leaving the nest. So these two things may take considerable time away from my schedule, especially considering the fact that I generally like to do stuff at a slow and steady pace, and I’ve discovered that I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to cleaning.
> 
> In conclusion, I may either not have much more free time to write, or I may have a lot more free time to write, I’m leaning towards the latter.
> 
> Bye-bye! And, have a wonderful rest of your day!


	8. Chapter 8 - Making Wilson Feel Better - Day 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is another filler chapter, what a shame, you can skip it if you want to, its pretty bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My excuse for this late chapter upload is really simple, I just got the Sims 4 and it was hard to stop playing it and get back to my writing, sorry.

Willow came back to her and Wilson’s base to find a peculiar sight.

For whatever reason, Wendy was making snow people.

Two tall ones, a medium-sized one that was only composed of two snow spheres, a medium-sized lump of snow that was the same size as the medium sized snow person, and a very small lump of snow.

“What the coal are you making?” Willow asked as she stared at the twin’s creations.

Wendy and Abigail didn’t seem to be alarmed by Willows sudden appearance, the young woman assumed that they probably heard her stomping through the snow towards them.

Wendy mumbled “stuff.”

“Okay, then what is this ‘stuff’? Willow asked as she walked to stand to the side of Wendy.

The little girl grumpily sighed “I made Wilson sad so I’m currently doing something that might make him feel better.”

“Aw, that’s swee-YOUR LIPS ARE BLUE!” Willow said in a panic.

Before Wendy could reply to Willow’s comment, the young woman scooped her up and ran into their base towards their fire pit. Willow brought some fire wood out of her skirt pockets and through it into the pit. The fire pit instantly lit the wood on fire, causing a spark of light and heat to appear on its bark from seemingly out of nowhere. Then, she pulled up one of their sitting logs closer to their fire and plopped Wendy down upon it.

“Kiddo, you nearly froze to death and you didn’t even realize it” Willow said.

“Oh, I was feeling a bit too cold for comfort…” Wendy trailed off.

Without asking, Willow grabbed Wendy’s left, uninjured, hand.

“Gosh, your hand is as cold as ice” Willow stated, concern clearly evident on her face.

“Thats odd, to me they don’t feel cold at all, in fact they don’t feel like anything really” Wendy remarked.

“Well duh!” Willow exclaimed. “They’re probably really numb by now.”

“You’re hands can get numb from being too cold?” Wendy asked.

Willow nodded.

“I have spent way too long of a time separated from the rest of society” Wendy said. “I’ve forgotten so many things about Earth during my time here.”

“Ya know, forgetting things about your past isn’t always a bad thing” Willow stated.

“In what way is forgetting good?” Wendy curiously asked.

“When you forget everything, you’re freed from the past. If you’re not going to remember something good, then you aren’t going to miss that thing, and there’s a lot of things to good things to yearn for in the constant. For example, lets hypothetically say that at five years old, your parents die. Then, you’re forced to live at a terrible orphanage with mean caregivers for the rest of your childhood. You would crave the love and affection that you received before being orphaned. But, if you forgot how good having a family could be, then you would be content with your situation.”

“I didn’t think about it like that” Wendy admitted “I suppose forgetting what I would miss isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” 

“There’s more positive aspects regarding forgetting your past, like forgetting traumatic events, forgetting a loved one that you’ve lost, or forgetting certain things that you’ve formerly done” Willow explained “just to list a few.”

“So, forgetting is the cure to regret?” Wendy concluded.

“Yea” Willow said “it may not be the healthiest cure in the world, but it’s certainly the most effective one.”

After a while, Wendy stood up from her log and began to walk back over to the snow people that she had previously been making.

Without a word, Willow and Abigail followed the little girl, curious to see exactly what she was doing.

Wendy walked up to the medium-sized snow person and began to shove charcoal eyes into its snow head.

Willow walked backwards to see the big picture of what Wendy was making

Wait a second…Willow thought as she stared at group of snow people and snow lumps.

“You’re making all of us in snow form, aren’t you?” Willow asked.

“Everyone except for your bird, I don’t make friends with poultry, I eat poultry. Unfortunately for it, it’s useful enough to be kept alive” Wendy explained.

“Okay so how will this make Wilson feel better?” Willow curiously asked.

“I basically told Wilson that nobody loved him and he took it the wrong way” Wendy said.

“Is there a right way to take that?” Willow inquired.

“Yes, happily accept that you are independent and free of having to look out for another creature” Wendy answered.

“Out of all four of us, you have the most messed-up view on life” Willow said with a frown.

“Its not messed-up because its wrong, its just messed-up because I should see life in a more blissful way” Wendy stated.

“How will making a family of snow peo-wait I get it, its a ‘family’ of snow people, its supposed to make Wilson feel like we familialy and friendilialy love him or something” Willow reasoned.

“I wouldn’t call us a ‘family’, more like roommates” Wendy said “but, yes, other than that, you’re correct.”

“Aw, you have a soft side don’t you?” Willow said with a confident smirk.

“Perhaps I do” Wendy replied “but I daresay that my cruel torturing of innocent creatures overshadows that aspect of myself.” Then, Wendy handed Willow two pieces of charcoal “can you please insert these into your snow person’s head, Willow?

“Sure” Willow said, as she walked over to the only other tall snow person without charcoal eyes already in it, and she began to shove them into its spherical head.

Without looking at Willow, Wendy said “Willow.”

Willow responded “Yea?”

“What are we supposed to use the carrots for?” Wendy asked.

“We’re supposed to eat them” Willow replied.

Wendy stopped what she was doing to stare at Willow with her hands on her hips and a slightly annoyed expression on her face.

Willow noticed this out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head towards Wendy.

“What?” After a small pause, Willow did a facepalm and said “I get it, involving snow people.“

Wendy lowered her hands and relaxed her face before saying “Wilson said that we’re supposed to use them for noses, but how exactly? They don’t look like noses.”

“Yea, they don’t look like noses, but then again, there isn’t many things that do resemble noses. I’ll go get some carrots to show you” Willow replied as she began to walk towards the base.

“I’ve got some carrots with me already” Wendy said, prompting Willow to change directions and walk towards her instead “I was anticipating that you’d eventually come back to our base” Wendy commented as she used to her left hand to give Willow her carrots whilst she hid her injured right hand behind her back.

Willow walked over to the snow person she supposed to be an imitation of Wilson, and waved Wendy over to her.

“We need to shove the but of the carrot” Willow tapped the larger, blunter, end of the carrot “into the snow, leaving this part” Willow pointed at the skinny, pointy, end of the carrot “out in the air.”

Wendy nodded in understanding.

Willow demonstrated this by gently pushing the but of the carrot into the center of the uppermost sphere of the snow person.

Wendy squinted at the snow person as the figurative cogs in her head began to spin, suddenly her eyes snapped wide open.

“I remember this, Abby and I used to make snow people during winter.” The young girl looked up at her twin “Abby, don’t you remember?” She asked.

Abigail shook her head, unfortunately, she didn’t.

Wendy’s frown deepened, “that’s alright, perhaps you will recall making them with me by the day’s conclusion.” Then, Wendy turned her attention to Willow “aren’t these actually called snowmen?” Wendy asked.

“Yea” Willow explained “it just sounds a bit sexist to call them snowmen.”

“Oh” Wendy replied “taking that into consideration, I suppose I prefer the name snow people.”

Abigail nodded in agreement, she was quite the feministic little girl.

“Okay, so getting back on topic, what exactly are you planning on doing to make Wilson feel better and stuff?” Willow asked, Turing her head to the line of snow people.

Wilson sighed, _she’s right_ , he glumly thought, _nobody loves me. If I were too die back on Earth, nobody would bat an eye, they wouldn’t give a gobbler. I would’ve had the only gravestone that nobody would ever leave a flower beside. There’s no point in living if I live without love, it doesn’t matter what kind of love it is, be it between family, friends, a partner, or partners, if you’re into that sorta stuff. Love was still a crucial part of human life. Yes, Wendy is correct about losing someone you love to be a devastating thing, but death, like love, is a necessary and natural thing to experience. I certainly don’t know what the meaning of life is, I don’t exactly consider myself to be a good philosophizer, but as far as I can tell, human nature points to the theory that we are intended to love other people, and when the time comes, they must leave us, and we must leave them, having to mourn over someone else is just a down on the roller coaster of life. By living without emotional ties to others, you play life safely, and your rollercoaster of your existence is a lot flatter, and your life is a lot less meaningful to yourself and other people._

_Why is my life so…terrible?_

Wilson soon realized that he was shivering, that certainly wasn’t good, especially since he didn’t bring any logs with him. He’d have to head back to base. The unskilled scientist sighed again, and stood himself, then he tromped woefully through the snow back to base, causing the snow beneath his feet to make icy crunching sounds as he walked. Luckily, the constant’s snowfall wasn’t all that heavy, so his trip wasn’t too slowed down by the cold season. 

Eventually, Wilson did arrive back at base, and immediately, he sat himself down on the only unoccupied log, letting the nearby fire bring him warmth, and physical comfort. Parallel to him and his log, was the twins, Willow, and their own log.

Wendy stood up from her log and walked over to Wilson, she wasn’t followed by her twin, or by Willow. Then, without saying a word, she grabbed Wilson by his wrist and practically dragged him over to one of the base’s exits.

“Wait, where are we going” Wilson asked. 

Although he didn’t receive an answer from the pig-tailed little girl, he continued to let her lead him over to where she was so intent on going to.

She stopped walking at gap between the walls.

From this spot, Wilson could see what appeared to be five snow people.

Wendy pointed to the first one, and by far the smallest of the bunch. It was a lump of snow with some bacon coming out from the center of it. And sticking out of the right, and left, side of the snow-pile was what looked to be broken off parts of a twig.

“Thats Chester” she explained “the bacon is supposed to be his tongue because that was the only pink thing that Willow, Abby, and I, could find.”

Then, she pointed to the second snow person right next to the Chester resembling lump. This snow person was a lot taller, it was composed of three snow spheres, two twigs stuck out of its torso, most likely resembling arms, and its face was composed of charcoal and a carrot, with the classic worry-free smile of a snow person. However, the interesting part about it was the top of its head. Upon its smallest snow-sphere was a load of charcoal, plus some twigs sticking out of the right and left underside of its head like reverse antlers.

“Thats Willow, we couldn’t find anything better than twigs to use as her pigtails, so they’re brown instead of black.”

Wendy skipped the snow person in the center and instead pointed at the fourth snow person. The fourth one was made of two snow spheres, and it was considerably shorter than Willow’s snow person, but taller then Chester. This snow person had smaller twig arms, and a charcoal frown on its face, as well as having a carrot jut out of the center of its face. Padded on the top of its head was some of the constant’s long, yellow, grass, and out of the sides of its head jutted more grass in probably another attempt at resembling pigtails. Also, to the right of its grass covered head was a common, freshly picked, red flower.

“Thats me.”

Next, the little girl pointed at the fifth snow person. This snow person wasn’t composed of any spheres, it was just a tall lump of snow that was the same height as Wendy’s snow person. There was no limbs on the side of its undefined body, nor did the snowy mound have a mouth or a nose. All that this snow person had was charcoal eyes and one of the constant’s red flowers on the left side of its head.

“Thats Abby.”

Lastly, Wendy pointed towards the snow person in the middle. This snow person was formed from three snow spheres, and was about the same height as Willow, it also had twig arms, a carrot nose, charcoal eyes, and a charcoal smile. Like Willow’s head, it too was covered in charcoal, however Wilson noted that some of the lightweight charcoal appeared to be pilled up on its head too.

“And thats you.”

Then, the young child turned to Wilson, cautiously stepped forward, and quickly hugged his leg.

“I’m sorry that I made you feel bad, but you should know that we care about you. I may not be intending to stay here, and death will take us all away inevitably, but we all friendlily…love…you.” 

Nowadays, Wendy wasn’t exactly used to saying the words ‘love you’ to anyone besides Abigail and her friend…during the last part of her nightmare…that was always the most painful part of the whole ordeal.

In order to distract herself from her painful thoughts and memories about…them…Wendy blurted out some more sorta heartfelt words.

“Its like we’re all close roommates and stuff.” Wendy noted, then she paused before saying “I really am sorry, I shouldn’t make other people look at life from a miserable perspective, its just hard not to. You are loved, and your presence in this base is very much appreciated. You may not have had anyone to love nor anyone to love you back on Earth, but things are different here, and we would all mourn you if you died. Don’t worry, I know a lot of mourning practices, and I bet that I could make you a pretty good grave and coffin, unfortunately, I don’t think that we have any black clothing, but that’s okay, its not a neces-“

Wendy was caught off guard by Wilson bending down onto his knees and hugging the young child.

“You have no idea how much this means to me” the adult sobbed.

Instantly, she tensed up, but tried to continue with positive comments. She had never seen an adult cry since the death of her dear sibling.

“Hey” Wendy awkwardly said “its alright, ummm…” the girl truthfully stated “I don’t know how to comfort people.”

Suddenly, She was joined by Willow, an ignorantly happy Chester, and her dead twin sister.

It was one big friendly group hug, and Wendy did not want to be apart of the affection.

“I desperately need to use the outhouse” Wendy lied. “Please let go of me.”

The group dispersed, and as soon as it did so, Wendy walked into the direction of their outhouse.

“Why did you three make snow people of all of us anyways?” Wilson asked as Willow handed him Chester, along with his eye bone, of course. 

“Its supposed to be a snow person family and stuff” Willow explained.

“Awww” Wilson said with a genuinely happy smile as Chester attempted to reach Wilson’s face and slobber on him “thats really sweet. But, let me guess, this was your idea wasn’t it?”

“Actually, this was all Wendy’s idea. I just helped her with adding the decorations to the snow people.”

“It’s really cute, and you’re right, it is like we’re all a family.”

Abigail spun around and proceeded to make cheerful ghost noises “OoOOh OooOoOh Ooh!”

The adults chuckled.

Wilson quickly looked at Willow and added “but, to make things perfectly clear, even though this could be considered a pretend family that the twins will soon leave, it is NOT implied that we’re a couple.”

“Agreed” the fire-lover stated “if anything, I view you as a adopted brother.”

“Thats a good way to put it, you’re like a troublemaking little sister who is unexpectedly good at dealing with kids and has a weird sense of fashion.’”

“And you’re like a dorky older brother who pays way too much attention to his funky, gravity-defying, hair style. Its like your hiding an unlimited supply of ridiculously strong hair styling gel somewhere.”

“Oh no, you’ve discovered my secret”

“Ooooh, sarcasm! You’re improving! Good job!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in a good mood so I'm gonna do some more writing, and just a small hint for those who actually read this notes box, based off of my current chapters, I'd say that we have about four chapters until the fun really begins, and Wendy's secrets are revealed. By now though, I bet you can guess some of her secrets, I think I've made some stuff pretty obvious. 
> 
> Also, recently I checked to see how many subscriptions I had, I forgot how many I had last time that I checked it ( I think I had about 1-3 ), and I truly was expecting that number to decrease, but as it turns out, I have six now, so if you're one of the six people who have subscribed to this story, thank you so much, I didn't think that anybody actually enjoyed this story past the first chapter.
> 
> Bye-bye, and have a wonderful day!


	9. Chapter 9 - Willow Has Some Fun - The Night Of Day 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is kinda sorta a filler chapter, it reveals some of the stuff going on in the constant, but that information is brought up again, and is explained more thoroughly, in chapter 13.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the shortest chapter that I've posted so far, but I updated this unusually early, so I think that the small word-count can ( hopefully ) be excused. Also, this is the first chapter that focuses mostly on Willow, usually Wendy has all the attention, or at least half of it.

“Where are you going?” Wendy curiously asked in a whispery voice “are you going into the dark to let the night monster give you a painful demise?”

“Nope” Willow quietly responded “I’m just gonna go to the Savannah to gather some more charcoal.”

“Oh.” Wendy yawned before asking “if trees screamed whilst they were aflame, do you think that society would consider it mass murder?”

Willow shrugged and whispered “I don’t know, maybe.”

Willow tugged her backpack onto her back, and she flicked her lighter on with a small *click* sound.

Then, she confidently strode into the darkness, eager for what would soon occur.

When she had been younger, Willow was afraid of the darkness, of course, her fears didn’t differ all that much from other children her age, but she was especially fearful of it. Willow didn’t know exactly when the creatures started appearing, but she knew that it began when she was pretty young. Willow had been sought out by what she liked to term, Shadow phoenixes. Shadow phoenixes were entirely composed of shadows and both the ability, and the desire, to hurt Willow, and, like a phoenix, they kept coming back. They never died, or at least, they never stayed dead. The only way that she could keep the shadowy creatures at bay was by setting fires. Not to say that they could be killed by flames, because they couldn’t, but as Willow had come to understand, the crazier she felt, the more monsters she could see, the darker their shadowy bodies got, and if she became too insane, then they would attack her without mercy. Fire helped her stay just far enough away from insanity that she would temporarily be safe from the Shadow phoenixes. 

However, as Willow had gotten older, and more addicted to her hobby of arson, the darkness was no longer a scary place, it was a welcome sight. It was as though the darkness was her canvas, and her lighter was her brush. It was beautiful to watch as fire slowly lit up the area, spreading its path of destruction elegantly, hearing the screams of people she hated and listening on until they screamed no more, and she could assume the worst, or in her eyes, the best: they had died. It was funny, most people stressed over their problems, cried until their tears could no longer fall, and overworked themselves for little to no reward, Willow viewed all that as silly, because it truly was. Almost every problem you encountered could be solved with setting stuff on fire. You hate your family? Strike a match and enjoy their suffering! You got stuck in jail? Burn the entire joint down and escape in the chaos! The shop owner at the bakery won’t give you any free samples because you’re homeless and don’t have any money? Get revenge and set their shop aflame! You’re bored? Set a neighborhood of rich people’s houses on fire and laugh maniacally in appreciation of your handiwork!

The fire-lover recalled when she had first met some of the other survivors, and upon Wilson and Maxwell explaining the entire Florid Postern situation to Willow and the other two people, an lengthy conversation began about how ‘horrid’ the constant was and how much they ‘craved’ to be back home. And Maxwell, not getting the hint from the conversation that everyone besides Willow was silently blaming him for the ordeal, whined about the hardships of survival the most. The former king was finally getting a taste of his own medicine, not that Willow had anything against him, but if anyone had the right to complain about the constant, it certainly wasn’t him. Everybody else having mutual hatred towards the constant reminded Willow of just how horrible her time in the old world was. In her eyes, coming to the constant was the best mistake of her life, and she had absolutely no intention of leaving it.

After all, fending for her survival every day wasn’t something new to Willow.

The young woman had no idea whether she was in the Savannah or not, the snow that piled on the ground like icing on a cake, hid the earth below her, causing Willow to be unable to know whether or not her terrain belonged to a forest, or if it belonged to a savannah. She hadn’t seen any trees for a while now, nor had she noticed any twig saplings. Willow paused and pulled a deep breath of air through her nose, concentrating on the scent. She could just barely smell the telltale scent of the constant’s long yellow grass, combined with an unpleasant scent of manure. Unfortunately, Willow was adorned in rabbit earmuffs rather than a beefalo hat.

 _Hopefully I won’t run into any beefalo in heat,_ Willow nervously thought.

Soon enough, Willow stood in the shadows of several tall, large, and brown, lifeforms.

Luckily for her, they were a cluster of evergreens and not a bunch of red-butted beefalo.

Willow had planted these trees two days before Wendy had joined their base. The fire-starter knew from experience that it was best to keep any flames one might light to receive charcoal in a safe, mostly empty, area, so that they wouldn’t spread and cause valuable flammable items to be burnt to a crisp.

Willow swapped her right, dominant, hand holding her lighter and let her left hand grasp it instead, then she cupped her right hand over the small flame, which in no way shielded its light. Whatever scientific theories of light applied to Earth, didn’t apply in the constant, if they did, then the night monster would’ve been able to sneak up on someone via their shadow. 

The young woman turned her still cupped hand forward, and as though her palm was some kind of torch, the fire licked away at her skin, yet it didn’t spread. If the others were to see this then they would be afraid of her, perhaps they would assume her to be some sort of ‘evil demon’, simply because her skin was somehow fire resistant. Willow tugged the bottom edge of her long black skirt upwards, towards her flaming hand. The fire curiously crept onto the new material, and like a young child in a big, open, area, the flame explored her skirt, and jumped to the rest of clothing as well to run upon it too. Another thing that Maxwell had changed about fire was that it no longer burnt up clothing, which was a smart, and very respectable decision on his part. Willow chuckled at the sight of her entire body being covered in flames, her odd ability hadn’t just given her an immunity to fire, but it had also given her skin the peculiar, and scientifically impossible, ability to act as though it was fuel, so, if she wanted to, the flames could burn on her body for however long she was alive. Of course, she could get rid of them by running around too quickly, therefore letting the air bring them to their undeserved demise, she could also splash water on herself or plain jump into a pond or an ocean, and she could roll around in some snow for a tad bit, which was what Willow planned to do when morning arrived.

The young woman’s fire-covered fingers combed through her pigtails, they too were coated in flames, and although Willow normally disliked her hair, it was during these times, the times when it was covered in flame, that she loved it.

Willow was now smiling ear-to-ear as her flame covered hand touched the previously cold bark of the tree, and she pleasantly watched as the fire on her hand spread to the evergreen. The woman of flames giggled as she ran and looped through her mini forest of twelve trees, whilst her fiery hands slid against their bark and needles. Willow stopped her trail of fiery destruction once she got to the middle of her flaming forest.

It was so beautiful.

On each and every tree, the flames had managed to overtake the snow piled on top of them. The whole scene looked like an orange, red, and yellow sunset. Maxwell hadn’t included one of those into the constant, which truly was a shame, but that was okay, she was inside of a sunset of her creation, no, she was _apart of_ the sunset of her creation. The familiar, nostalgic, scent of smoke filled her nose, reminding her of all of the other blissful times that she had lit fires. The crinkling sounds of destruction as the fire destroyed its evergreen trees was far better than any music box that Willow had ever listened to. Oh, and the heat, it was so warm, fuzzy, and downright wonderful, especially during the extreme coldness of winter.

In Willow’s eyes, fire was the best thing in the world, and she believed that it was her destiny to spread it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually I have stuff to say for note boxes, this time I really don't know what I should write.
> 
> Well this has nothing to do with this fanfic but I'm excited about something I read today, or rather yesterday 'cause it just turned twelve A.M. over on my side of the world, anyways, we may or may not have our first Wilba/Wurt fanfic pretty soon. I don't think that many people ship them ( I know I do ), but I've been hoping for a while now that somebody will write a fanfic on 'em. Basically there's a gal in the Don't Starve forums that posts a lot of Wilba/Wurt art, someone else discovered her fan-art page, made an account, and informed the artist that she loved her drawings, and said "Probably going to write some fanfics sometime of Wilba and Wurt fluff." This could mean that the person loses motivation and doesn't end up writing anything at all, it could mean a Wilba and Wurt pairing in a friends sort of way, or it could mean a chance that Archive Of Our Own gets its first Wilba/Wurt fanfic!
> 
> The link to the webpage I'm referring to, is this: 
> 
> https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/115309-lenas-fanart-momentz/page/4/


	10. Chapter 10 - Covered In Crimson - Day 30 and 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't that much of a filler chapter, so I suggest that you read it, but you can skip it if you want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that a time-skip has occurred, its day thirty now. Also, the end of this chapter is quite gory, and for those of you who have experienced intense violence at the hands of another person, then both this chapter, and the next one, might be quite triggering for you. If you do plan on skipping the gory section of this chapter, then at the part when the creature specifically states that they’re going to torture the other creature, then feel free to not read the rest of the chapter.

Please read the notes section before reading this chapter, thank you.

Willow decided to break the silence, and in a very whispery tone, she asked “Sooooo, have you ever fought a Deerclops before? Or have you always just let the tree guards kill them?”

Wilson paused before whispering “I’ve killed two of them before, they aren’t too hard to deal with if you’re quick on your feet, unfortunately, everything about them is…horrific.” Wilson winced in disgust at the recollection of what the menacing species looked like. “When I fought it those two times, after the battles, they were so horrifying that I found myself to be insane.”

“Admittedly” Willow said in a hushed voice “I’m kinda worried about their crazy ability to freeze people in solid ice.”

“Being frozen in solid ice is quite concerning, but remember, it won’t necessarily come for us at all” Wilson quietly reminded Willow.

“Yea, yea, but the likelihood of that is pretty small” Willow whispered.

Previously, when Wilson had been telling Willow about what the Deerclops was for the first time, he explained to her why things might be a bit different now that several people were living on an island. The new ruler of The Nightmare Throne, the okay tall lady, was running the constant quite similarly to how Maxwell used to run it, she had removed very little crafts from their memories, altered a few existing crafts, and added new craftable recipes to their heads, not only this but she also added new plants and animals onto their island, she was actually making survival in the constant a lot easier for them. And, of course, Wilson experimented with all of the new things she had added into their world, and much to his base-mates boredom, he had described everything that he had learned from his tests and observations on these new items and creatures. Anyways, it was traditional that there would only be one Deerclops on an island, and if the okay tall lady was going to continue to go by Maxwell’s rules, then perhaps only one of the bases on the island would get the Deerclops. It was wishful thinking, but it was a possibility that they wouldn’t actually receive the winter giant, so it was something to hope for.

A small, bundled-up, creature in Willow’s arms began to stir. It stretched its legs out a bit, yawned, and cracked open its eyes, letting them adjust to the sudden sunlight, then, it said “why are you holding me?”

Abigail, who was previously staring off into space, giggled, causing odd, yet cheerful, ghostly noises to fill the air.

After nearly an entire week of being awake, the little ten-year-old finally passed out from a lack of sleep, and to everyone’s relief, she didn’t have any nightmares. However, this meant that for the past three days Wendy had been catching up on all of the sleep that she had missed. So, today, when the Deerclops was supposed to arrive, the adults had decided to trek away from their base, and to give their tucked-out little base-mate a tad bit more sleep, Willow carried her on their hike. Luckily for Willow, Wendy was a pretty scrawny child so she was rather easy to hold for an extended period of time, and Willow was pretty dang strong from living in the constant for two years.

“Me and Wilson didn’t want to wake you up” Willow replied.

Wendy grumbled something under her breath before sleepily crawling out of Willow’s arms and nearly falling onto the snow covered ground.

 _The next time that I’m held by one of these people I swear I’m going to rip somebody’s eyes out, and it won’t be mine,_ Wendy thought, even though she would go on to break this oath.

After an entire day of walking, night was nearly upon them, so Willow set up a campfire and she, Wilson, and Wendy, had dinner, before settling into a nervous silence as they listened for the incoming wintery beast.

“If the Deerclops is coming, we should be able to hear the sound of it moaning.” Wilson added “Also, no, I don’t why it moans, it just does.”

Currently, Wilson was worriedly twiddling his fingers, and every minute that passed by, he would stroke one of his gloved hands through his hair.

Willow was holding her teddy bear, Bernie, quite tightly, and was nervously turning her lighter on and off whilst she internally debated whether or not she should set a forest fire.

Abigail was hovering protectively over Wendy and was scanning the area, and listening intently, for any signs of the giant.

Wendy, being quite bored, was ripping up tiny blades of nearby grass and was throwing them into their campfire, a task that she found to be almost therapeutic.

“Why are the three of you so worried?” Wendy suddenly asked, disturbing the peaceful silence of the night “Its just death.”

Wilson nervously responded “I’m pretty sure that fearing death is a reasonable thing.”

“We’re all going to die eventually” Wendy morosely stated.

“Well, death actually does matter on this island because we have no idea what happens to people here after they die” Wilson argued.

“I know what happens after death” Wendy said “you get shoved onto a new island.”

“Its more complicated than that.” Wilson mumbled.

“Complicated or not, if this Deerclops monster does show up, I’m not moving” Wendy stated “death can bring a short-lived end to my pitiful existence.”

Upon hearing this, Abigail stopped glancing around for signs of the Deerclops and relaxed next to Wendy, the bottom third of her ghostly figure folded against the ground as though she was sitting.

Willow quietly murmured “if it does end up coming, then I’ll set this forest on fire and watch as it burns to death.”

Wilson frowned, and said with concern in his voice “just take a few deep breaths Willow.”

Out of the corner of Wendy’s eye she could see Abigail staring at her, so she stared back. Her sister had a mischievous look one her face and her eyes darted to the two adults.

Wendy mouthed _‘what are you going to do?’_

Wendy knew her sister well enough to realize that whatever Abigail was planning on doing, it was going to be a prank of some sort.

Abigail winked at Wendy before hovering behind her back.

Suddenly, a loud moaning sound filled everyones ears.

Willow speedily got to her feet and frantically pulled her spear from out of her pockets. Wilson, who was a bit more relaxed, first picked his spear up that was sitting next to him and hastily stood up too.

Before Wilson could utter any sort of directions to his fellow base-mates, Wendy sighed and said “Relax, that was just Abby.”

Abigail poked her head out from behind Wendy’s back and began to giggle, causing cheerful ghostly noises to fill the air.

Wilson grumbled and whispered something under his breath as he sat down.

Willow glared at Abigail for a moment, before sitting down and throwing yet another log into the already dangerously high campfire.

Abigail once again floated to Wendy’s side.

Wendy leaned in towards her sister and whispered “in other circumstances that should’ve been funny, but I think the adults are too worked-up to take it that way.” Then, Wendy paused “actually…who cares about them? I enjoyed that, it was a creative prank, and it’s their own faults for being too scared of death.”

Abigail nodded in agreement, she would’ve been happier if everybody had liked her joke, but if her sibling liked it, then that was all that really mattered.

Abigail walked side-by-side the corporeal people as they trekked back home. To Wendys disappointment, and to the adults delight, the Deerclops didn’t arrive the entire night. Her sibling had been the only one out of the three of them to have gone to sleep, and it seemed as though Willow and Wilson regretted not going to bed as they tiredly trudged through the fluffy white snow coating the ground. 

Suddenly, Abigail’s twin stopped walking. Although the adults didn’t take notice to this, the little specter did. Wendy appeared to be staring at something in the forest of lumpy evergreen trees that they were traveling next to. Abigail followed her gaze to see an interesting sight. 

In the distance, behind some trees, the little ghost could see what appeared to be a pig clad in clothing, it was wearing a hat, a sash, and a skirt. Behind it was another pig, and for some reason, it was noticeably smaller, and it only wore a skirt. Behind the odd looking pigs were two strange snowy-white and icy-blue looking boulders. Abigail squinted her eyes and strained her vision…wait a second, those weren’t pigs, they were…something else…and were they wearing plaid? The pair of interesting creatures saw the twins looking at them, and happy smiles grew on their faces.

 _Awww, they’re nice creatures aren’t they?_ Abigail optimistically thought.

Then, the bigger one took something out of its sash and held whatever it was up to its mouth.

Suddenly, her sister, Wendy, shrieked, grabbing the attention of the adults which where now quite a few steps ahead of the sisters.

Wendy looked up at Abigail and pointed tearfully at a hound tooth blow dart that was currently nestled in the flesh of her shoulder. Blood quickly trailed down her arm, staining the puffy sleeves of her shirt a crimson color. 

A determined and angry look formed on Abigail’s face.

It was time to murder whatever the gobbler that blow-dart-wielding, sister-harming, creature was.

Abigail charged at her sibling’s onslaughter. The attacker held the same weapon up to its face once more. A blow dart zipped through the air, it ripped the surface layer of her ghostly from before lazily falling out of her. However, Abigail screamed in pain in her incomprehensible ghostly voice, this signaled to the pig resembling creature that its weapon had done some sort of damage to her, despite the lack of blood exiting her wound. But the pain didn’t stop Abigail, she continued to charge at it, even more infuriated than before, and from the corner of her eye, she once again saw her twin, and she was running by Abigail’s side to gruesomely demolish the wretched animal.

They were too focused on their attacker to hear Wilson scream to them a warning about the boulders up ahead.

Like the warrior she was, Wendy launched herself tentacle spike first at the beast, and like a coward, it evaded her attack and began to run away from them.

Abigail could hear her sibling whisper the word “pathetic” under her breath.

Suddenly, the white and blue boulders ran at them, and Abigail realized in frustration that they were actually blue hounds. The little ghost recognized them from what her sister called ‘the icy grip of death, trap’ and what their shared best friend called ‘the ice staff trap’, if she was being honest, she preferred their friends name for it over what her sibling called it.

However, the hounds’ attention was quickly diverted as a boomerang speedily slashed into their flesh on its U turn back to its thrower.

“HEY YOU DUMB HOUNDS!” Willow yelled as she caught her ranged weapon “I’M GONNA MURDER YOU!”

The hounds, of course, had no idea what Willow was saying, but that didn’t really matter, because she had just attacked them, and they weren’t okay with that. So, they began to run at Willow with the intention to kill.

Wendy wasn’t at all phased by the idea of their suddenly being hounds on the battlefield, she hadn’t even looked back to see why the sounds of their barking were growing more distant instead of closer. Her attention was entirely captured by the monster who had blown a dart at her sister.

Abigail had looked back to see what was going on, and was quite glad that the adults were stepping in to deal with the hounds. So, she returned to pursuing the horrid creature that had made the terrible mistake of firing a hound tooth at her twin.

The young pair chased it down. Whatever the foolish creature was, it was intelligent, or it was at least a good deal smarter than the pigs of the constant. As they ran after it, the odd beast tried to loose them in the forest of lumpy evergreen trees, and at one point, it started to head towards the edge of their island where the land met the ocean, and it made a swift right turn, nearly making Wendy, who was in close pursuit behind it, fall into the sea. Eventually, after a good thirty minutes of running after it, the tired creature just…gave up. It stopped running, turned around, hung its head, and put its hands, or rather, it put its flippers, into the air to signal its surrender. Abigail supposed that it thought that if it could do that, then they would let the strange mammal walk away alive.

Oh, it thought wrong, nobody spits darts at the Carter twins and doesn’t die…even though this was the first time that either girl had ever gotten hit with a dart before.

Abigail watched as her sister acted like she might mercifully let the monster go.

Wendy faked a pleased, and not at all cruel, smile, and made a motion with her hand that wasn’t holding her tentacle spike for the creature to crouch down. It did as it was directed and folded its leg-flippers appropriately. She then walked over to the side of the monster, and with her left hand, she took its plaid headwear off of its smooth, bald, head, but at the same time, her right hand, with Wendy’s weapon still in its grasp, snuck into one of her pockets and silently pulled out some rope. The unsuspecting beast looked relieved, it thought that the twins were simply taking some of its valuables as revenge and would mercifully let it go afterwards. Wendy took a few innocent steps towards the back of the creature, then she gave Abigail a mischievous look as she shoved the red and green hat into one of her pockets. Suddenly, Wendy forcefully pushed her Mary Jane into the mammal’s back, producing a surprised sound from the beast’s throat, the sound sort of reminded Abigail of the kind of noise that a car motor made. Wendy cruelly grinned as she stood on its back. She then crouched down and speedily grabbed the flailing animal’s arm-flippers, expertly tying them behind the creature’s back with a rope. The little girl proceeded to roughly jump off of it and harshly contained its leg-flippers against one another with some more rope. Abigail looked at her sibling as Wendy’s icy-blue eyes travelled to meet her own pure white eyes. 

“I’m going to torture it now, you might want to look away Abby.”

Abigail nodded and did a one-hundred eighty degree turn, allowing her to be facing away from the carnage that would soon be occurring as she mentally prepared herself to drown out the tell-tale sounds of agony that the poor monster would certainly make.

This wasn’t the first time Wendy had tied another intelligent creature up with rope and had tortured it to death, she liked to use this same method for befriended pigs and already injured merms. It was obviously important that the recipient of her torture couldn’t run away, and when the animal who would receive the torture was larger than her, the ropes were a necessity.

The Mac Tusk gazed at the small child with wide, fearful, eyes as she mercilessly grinned, allowing her creepy to laugh to escalate into one of those wicked ‘muahaha’ sort of laughs. The evil tall man must’ve been proud of his creations, as he desired them to be called exactly what he had named their species, so if someone were to go near one of his creatures, then the name of said creature would pop up in one’s mind. This allowed Wendy to know exactly what the name of the wretched, sister-attacking, menace was. The little girl raised her spiky weapon, and with surprising force, she hacked it towards the Mac Tusk’s back, the animal winced in mental preparation for the quick blow, but Wendy paused her weapon right above its back. The young child had found that when torturing creatures with more expressionate faces, it was quite entertaining to scare them. Of course, it wasn’t as though Wendy would do anything quickly, there wasn’t much fun in that. So, instead, Wendy slowly began to push her weapon into the Mac Tusk’s back. Crimson blood flowed through the wound as she gradually pushed down harder onto it. 

Wendy had never read any of the works of Poe, well except his most famous work, _The Raven_ , but nearly everyone who was well-read had heard that relatable poem. Wendy was far more interested in the works of Shakespeare, however her mother was more inclined to the stories and Poems of Poe. So, every Halloween night, when Wendy slowly sucked and savored her favorite candy: lollipops, and Abigail inhaled all of her sugary-goods, except for her licorice and raisins, Wendy’s mother would tell them some of Poe’s stories from memory. Wendy fondly recalled one of his stories about a man who was strapped onto a bench in a dark room filled with rats, some extremely dry meat, and no water, and as the hours, or maybe even days, ticked by, he watched as a sharp pendulum above him slowly inched down towards his body, promising him extreme torment through a excruciatingly slow demise. Luckily for him, he managed to get out of such a wretched death, however Wendy knew some things happened after he freed himself and she couldn’t recall whether he survived those threats or not ( lets just assume that Wendy doesn’t know, or has forgotten, the name of this story by Edgar Allen Poe, but its name is _The Pit and The Pendulum_ ). What Wendy had derived from the memories of that story at an older age was that physical torture was the cruelest when it was done slowly.

The MacTusk was yelping in agony now. Wendy couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Then, she readjusted the position of the weapon upon the beast’s back. Tentacle spikes were quite rough weapons, and even though in a combat situation it was wisest to use its long, hard, and sharp spikes, the purple side of the somewhat strong weapon was twenty times rougher than sand paper, and as the morbid little girl had discovered, with a little bit of pressure, it could do some severe damage to any creature. So, she let the rough purple of her tentacle spike rest on the Mac Tusk’s back, then she proceeded to slowly, and strongly, drag it across the back of the animal, ripping and tearing off flesh in the process. Wendy soon got a rather malicious idea in her head that she deemed ‘fun’. The little girl played a game where she made sure that she couldn’t see a single piece of flesh on the Mac Tusk’s back, by using her tentacle spike to rip it all off. She succeeded in her task, its back looked like somebody had spilt a deep shade of red paint all over it. The animal hadn’t stopped screaming, but it did look like it would pass out soon, that signaled to Wendy that she needed to wrap up her torture session with it. So, she hoped onto its back, and stomped all over the ginormous wound on it. Wendy silently wished that her Mary Janes had spikes similar to the ones on her weapon beneath them, if they did, then every time she stomped on the creature, it would feel as though she was pushing knives into its wounds. The young child proceeded to wack her tentacle spike everywhere on the Mac Tusk except for the bonds that held it. Wendy thoroughly enjoyed doing this, and shrieked and giggled in extreme delight at the Mac Tusk’s agony, similar to how her sister acted when she opened Christmas presents. Suddenly on bare, blubbery, areas of the mammal, a purple and white weapon would slam down on them, and once it was removed, crimson appeared on its flesh. Eventually, Wendy’s beloved weapon broke. A *crack* sound came from her tool of torture as unnatural, deep, cracks spread quickly all over it, then, like chalk you’ve applied to much pressure to, it broke apart in Wendy’s hands before crumbling even further into purple and white dust that passed through the gaps between her fingers like sand before disappearing into the wind.

Wendy’s creepy smile disappeared from her face, she liked that weapon, but it seemed that she would soon have to craft, and make due with, a spear. She hoped off of the Mac Tusk’s red back and looked to its face to see if it was still awake. To Wendy’s despair, the blood coated creature was unconscious. It had probably missed some of their torture session, and that sucked…for Wendy, not for the Mac Tusk, the smart mammal strongly preferred unconsciousness over extreme pain.

“I’m done, Abby” Wendy said with a disappointed sigh, she found it quite unfortunate that her fun had to end so abruptly.

Her ghostly sibling turned around and winced at the sight of the mammal.

“It felt like torturing a pig. Except a lot less smelly.”

 _Now, where exactly are the adults?_ Wendy thought as her eyes scanned the forest that she and her twin found themselves in.

Instead of seeing Willow and Wilson, Wendy’s eyes caught a different figure watching them from behind a lumpy evergreen tree.

“Oh no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo hoo! Ten chapters! This is a mini-milestone! Thanks to all of my readers for managing to read this horrible story so far! Whether your reading this up-to-date, or your reading this a few weeks from now, a few months from now, or maybe even a few years from now, thank you so much. This whole thing is a weird mix of overly-exaggerated family moments, violence, torture, obvious secrets, the occasional existential comment from Wendy, and a whole lot of moments where I’m just describing boring things that the characters are doing, like the entirety of chapters three and four, oh, and also a ton of dialogue, ugh, I don’t understand why I write so much dialogue when I hate it when the dialogue composes the majority of a chapter. Anyways, give yourself a pat on the back, if you haven’t skipped any chapters, that means that you’ve already read over 30,000 words of this nonsense, congratulations! You deserve an award for enduring through this! ( ‘Cause I get really bored of most of my chapters when I’m editing them, seriously people, why are you reading this? ) Sadly, I don’t have any awards, so just pretend that I’m givin’ you one.
> 
> Okay, so when will I be postin’ the next chapter? Hopefully real soon, I’ve already typed it up, now all that I need to do is some editing. However, I’m gonna make my really up-to-date people ( as in you subscribed folk, ya’ll know who you are ) wait in mild suspense before I post my next chapter. So, let me ask you this question, who is the figure behind the tree? 
> 
> Tiny spoiler down below! 
> 
> I’ll give ya a hint, its nobody important.


	11. Chapter 11 - Death, Blood, Murder, And Children - Day 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of this chapter is important for you to read, but you might be fairly confused, altogether I suggest reading this chapter, besides compared to some of my other chapters this isn't that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya’ll, so like the previous chapter, this chapter may include some triggering content, so if reading about blood makes you feel uncomfortable, or/and if in the past you were physically abused, then you might want to skip this chapter.
> 
> Also, what if Mac Tusk’s were vampires? That would be cool. They would have vampire-fang-tusk-thingies, and they might have a plaid cape with a raised collar, and maybe instead of playing a spooky pipe organ, they’d play a spooky Scottish bagpipe.

Please read the the notes box before reading this chapter.

Abigail looked down at Wendy, a puzzled expression shown on her face. Since her sister wouldn’t give more of an explanation, Abigail followed her gaze to see a tree…wait a second, there was something behind that tree…

 _Oh no,_ Abigail thought.

Her twin, Wendy, slowly walked towards the creature, it cowered against its lumpy evergreen hiding spot, it was scared, maybe even too terrified to move. 

Her sister calmly spoke “hey there, little…Wee Tusk, ummm your parent asked me to use my back scratcher on their paint-covered back, and they enjoyed it so much that they um fell asleep.”

The Wee Tusk still looked horrified, even if it did know English, Wendy’s words didn’t matter, the small mammal clearly understood what had just happened to its parent.

Abigail put two and two together, this Wee-Tusk-animal was a smaller version of the other creature Wendy had just slaughtered because they were a child and parent pair. An intense feeling of guilt filled Abigail. She and her sister had just done to this Wee Tusk’s parent what the hounds had done to their best friend. This poor child would also have to live for an eternity, forever searching for their guardian whom they had so miserably lost, just like they had to do with their long lost friend. The odd creature’s parent had only attacked her sister because they needed to eat her to survive. This poor little animal had watched their caretaker get beaten to unconsciousness with a tentacle spike, and judging from the amount that it was bleeding, they were already dead, or at least very near death.

Abigail once again looked at her sister, she must’ve came to the same conclusions, her normally unexpressionate face was tinged with guilt and regret.

“You need a new home to stay in. I know just the place.” Her sister stated, then she added “I’m sorry.”

Abigail watched as Wendy suddenly poked her head up and scanned the forest of lumpy evergreen trees that surrounded them. 

Then, she looked to Abigail and asked “do you know which direction the adults are in?”

Abigail proceeded to visually scan the forest too, however she was unable to remember which direction they had been running in, so she shook her head.

Wendy sighed “thats unfortunate.” After a small pause, the little girl mumbled “we could probably make a flare…”

 _Oh my goodness, listening to Wilson’s findings and observations regarding the new stuff on this island has actually paid off,_ Wendy thought in slight amazement.

Wendy pushed that thought out of her head and thought about what materials were required for crafting a flare.

“alright” the small child said “I have everything we need, except for some nitre.”

 _Thats not too bad,_ Wendy thought, _boulders aren’t all that uncommon._

The morbid child diverted her attention to the Wee Tusk in front of her. She could tell that they were still too scared to run away, they were cowering against their tree and looking at Wendy as though she was a murderer…which wasn’t at all far from the truth.

Wendy securely grabbed one of its hand-flippers and began to drag them along as she ungracefully stomped through the snow, her Mary Janes indenting red foot prints into the fluffy white stuff as she stomped along.

Only a few moments after being grabbed, the poor young Wee Tusk began to struggle under her grip.

Wendy stopped walking and focused on the traumatized young child before her. It wasn’t strong enough to break free of her grasp. And that wasn’t because Wendy was strong, it was simply due to the fact that the Wee Tusk was fairly tiny and weak. There was a reason that Mac Tusks fired darts instead of engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Wendy reached into her pocket and brought out their parents plaid headwear, and in the hopes that having their guardian’s belonging would calm them down, she plopped it onto the head of the Wee Tusk

Wendy suddenly winced at the creature’s familiar features. The scared expression, the full moon eyes, the long pearly-whi-

 _No,_ Wendy thought, _I can’t think about that. I won’t allow myself to remember those times._

Wendy crouched down to their height and silently stared at them. The mammal’s fearful eyes looked at her sad ones, and under Wendy’s sorrowful gaze, the small plaid-wearing child gradually calmed down. 

“Can you understand English?”

The Wee Tusk didn’t make any sort of physical gesture signaling yes, so Wendy supposed that it didn’t know her language.

She loosened her grip on the teary-eyed creature’s flipper, and comfortingly held it, gently guiding the intelligent animal through the snow.

The Wee Tusk was silent, but it complied with Wendy, allowing her to hold their hand as they walked beside her. The ten-year-old human child supposed that the mammal was still trying to process what they had previously witnessed, along with what was currently occurring.

Wendy felt terrible, if she had just thought for a moment about the smaller animal that she had previously seen by the Mac Tusk’s side, and realized that they were their child, then none of this would’ve happened, Wendy wouldn’t have killed the creature that this Wee Tusk cared about the most. Now this small mammal would be like Wendy, sad and depressed, unable to stop mourning the creature whom they cared about the most.

After about ten minutes of the group of three silently traveling through the cold winter snow, Abigail saw, and notified Wendy of, a plain, light grey, boulder in the distance. Wendy speedily walked over to it whilst the small Wee Tusk attached to her arm shuffled along right next to her.

Wendy heaved out a sigh, she didn’t have a pickaxe with her, she would need to go through the annoying process of crafting one. She let go of the Wee Tusk’s flipper and sat herself down on the snowy ground, however the small mammal continued to stand. Wendy didn’t blame them, the snow wan’t that much of a comfortable thing to have your bum rest on. The little girl took two thin pieces of flint along with two thick twigs out of her pockets, and crafted the tool. Wendy had crafted a pickaxe so many times before that crafting it nowadays felt almost automatic to her, she barely needed to pay attention to what her hands were doing. 

When Wendy was shoving one of her pieces of flint through one of the twigs, an idea popped into her head.

 _I should probably craft a spear for myself,_ Wendy thought, _it’s dangerous to be without one in this horrid place._

Wendy wouldn’t have crafted a spear for her survival if she wasn’t with the Wee Tusk, but she had a moral duty to get them to Willow and Wilson, so until that happened, she needed to protect both herself and the smart little mammal from any attackers.

Soon, she was done crafting her pickaxe, and she carefully placed it to the side of her, then she began to craft her spear, grabbing a sharp piece of flint, two long twigs, and a yard of rope that she had crafted along with several other yards of rope to pass her sleepless nights by, out of her pockets. As she put the materials in her lap, she suddenly felt something cold pressing into the skin of her neck.

“OoH OOoOoOH!” Abigail exclaimed.

Wendy’s back and head were slowly pressed onto the snowy ground by the object on her neck. As she was pushed backwards, Wendy’s eyes travelled to what was pressing into her skin. It was the pickaxe that she had just crafted, and attached to the handle of her tool was a flipper, and this flipper belonged to a revenge seeking Wee Tusk. With its other flipper, it removed the materials resting on Wendy’s lap and threw them a few yards away from the trio. The small creature continued to press the pickaxe into Wendy’s frail neck, causing a small bead of blood to trail down her skin like the tear drops trailing down the Wee Tusk’s face. 

The small animal crouched down next to the murderous little girl and began to pull things out of her pockets. 

Abigail angrily approached the small mammal, however she soon stopped as the Wee Tusk quickly turned their head to look at her and pressed their stolen tool further into Wendy’s neck. The little girl’s face winced and she sharply inhaled in pain. Abigail realized that if she were to attack the Wee Tusk, then the intelligent animal would decapitate her sibling. So, she backed away and watched as they plundered her sister’s pockets.

Wendy was smart enough to realize that if the Wee Tusk wanted to, they could give her a horribly slow decapitation, and they might even decide to torture her like she had done to their parent, so she didn’t move as they investigated her belongings. Most of what Wendy had with her was of no interest to the little animal, but the pocketless mammal did grab all of her yards of rope, all of her food, her yellow thermal stone, and…Abigail’s flower, along with the silk bracelet that was gently tied around it. 

Much to the twins fury, the monstrous little beast turned over its plaid hat and placed the special red flower inside of the headwear before shoving it back onto its head. Both girls were now glaring harshly at the Wee Tusk, it had gone way too far. The mammal stood up, and continuing to keep a strong grip on its pickaxe, the monster rolled Wendy over so that her back faced the sky and her stomach touched the snowy ground. Then it proceeded to tie Wendy’s hands behind her back, just like what she had done to its parent. However, it was only using one flipper, and it hadn’t any experience with tying ropes before, so the beasts work was quite sloppy and not as tight as the bonds on its guardian’s corpse. Nevertheless, the ropes did their job, Wendy’s arms were successfully constrained. And much to her discomfort, and slight pain, the ropes didn’t feel good on her healing right wrist. The Wee Tusk stretched its arm flipper to continue to hold the pickaxe against the back of the little girl’s neck while it tied her ankle’s against one another, mentally being disgusted by her legs not being flippers. Then, It stood up, and reached towards the ground for one of the pieces of flint that it had removed from Wendy’s pockets, and upon grabbing it, the small monster raised the sharp mineral above the helpless little human’s back, and was about to forcefully bring it down upon her just like it had seen her do to its parent. However, it paused as the ghost right next to it shrieked in her incomprehensible ghostly language.

“OOoOOH OooOoOOOH oOH!” Abigail screamed.

The Wee Tusk frowned in annoyance, it had forgotten all about the ghost. The Beast heavily sighed, if it made any attempts to seriously damage the killer of its parent, then the specter would kill it, and they valued their own life a lot more than they valued revenge. So, like a person cooly dropping a microphone, the Wee Tusk dropped the piece of flint and it landed right back into the pile of other materials pulled out of Wendy’s pockets. The angry spirit and the dangerous animal glared at one another for a few more seconds before the monster swiftly removed the pickaxe from Wendy’s neck and sprinted back to its home with Abigail’s flower still resting atop its bald head, covered by its plaid hat. Abigail would’ve chased after it, but she knew that it would outrun her, also she was well aware that her sister needed her.

“It stole your flower, and your bracelet” Wendy grumbled “I should’ve killed it when I had the chance.”

Half of Wendy’s head rested uncomfortably on the cold winter snow, and the other half faced the sky. The blood from her neck trailed onto the pure white snow beneath her, staining it a red color. The little girl rolled over, the ropes on her wrists uncomfortably hitting her tail bone. Wendy roughly brought herself up into a sitting position. If she had sat up like that a week ago, then the injury she had received in-between her shoulder blades from the warrior spider would be throbbing in pain, luckily things heal extremely quickly in the constant, and that injury was now just a scar. Wendy scooted herself near the objects that the Wee Tusk had removed from her pockets so that her back faced the multitude of now cold materials. Then, with her hands bound behind her back, she randomly grabbed one of the objects. She tried to use her sense of touch to feel what sort of object she had picked up was, however she quickly realized that her fingers were far too numb for her to do that.

Wendy turned her head to look at her sibling, wincing in the process from the wound etched into her neck “Abby, am I holding a piece of flint?”

Abigail shook her head.

Wendy dropped whatever she had been holding and reached for something new “Now?”

Abigail, once again, shook her head.

Wendy sighed in annoyance and dropped that item, then she scooped up another random object.

Abigail nodded.

This time, Wendy sighed in relief. However, she quickly realized that since both of her arms were numb, cutting the rope without injuring herself would be a tricky task. After all, if the piece of flint in her hands was sharp, she might’ve already cut herself and she didn’t even realize it. So, with the help of various nods and shakes of her head from Abigail, Wendy managed to unbind her arms. Afterwards, with fierce speed, Wendy cut through the ropes encircling her ankles and shakily stood herself up. 

The little girl was horribly cold, she was shivering, her skin was even more paler than normal, and for some reason, it was getting a bit hard to breathe. Winter certainly was an unforgiving season, especially since that wretched Wee Tusk had stolen her thermal stone.

However, Wendy was determined to find that monster again and retrieve the items that it had stolen from Abigail and her, and in order to do that, she would need a spear. The blood covered child trudged over to the materials needed to create her weapon that were now strewn about on the snowy ground. Wendy collected all of the objects before beginning on creating her makeshift spear. Crafting it was actually quite simple, all she had to do was hold her piece of flint on the ends of her two twigs and sturdily tie her yard of rope around said materials, which connected them in such a fashion that it created a rudimentary weapon, but nevertheless a weapon that would be able to help Wendy take back what the awful Wee Tusk had thieved from Abigail and her.

“What direction did that little monster head in?”  
Abigail began to float where she had seen it run off to.

Wendy nodded, shoved her spear into her pocket, and ran as quickly as she could towards the Wee Tusk.

Right in front of them was the small, modest, cottage which the small beast called home. Two words sprung up in Wendy’s mind: walrus camp.

She was freezing cold now, at this point, for whatever the reason, she had stopped shivering and was actually becoming quite drowsy and was also experiencing issues with her co-ordinating herself, not only this, but breathing was getting fairly difficult for the little girl.

Wendy extended her frostbitten arm and weakly knocked on the door of the ‘walrus camp.’

A few moments later, the door partially opened, revealing a curious little Wee Tusk. Upon seeing the twins, its expression of inquisition turned into one of terror as it attempted to shut the small wooden door to its house. Unfortunately for it, Wendy had other plans, and her scrawny hand prevented the monster from closing the entrance to the igloo. Then, with her other hand, Wendy grabbed one of the thief's flipper-hands and pulled it away from its home. The Wee Tusk resisted her pull, knowing full well that the look of pure anger on the girl’s face signaled the end of its life. However, just like to death itself, its struggles would be in vain, only accomplishing a small, yet miserable, prolongment of its meaningless life. As soon as Wendy had successfully dragged it out of its home, she used her Mary Jane to close the door of the walrus camp. Then, with her hand that had previously been holding it open, the small child reached into her pocket and retrieved a newly made spear from its depths. The smart walrus-resembling-creature stopped trying to remove itself from her tight grasp and stood still, looking directly at Wendy. It’s pure white eyes pleaded with her icy blue ones to give it mercy. The Wee Tusk was crying, Wendy was furious, and Abigail had already turned herself around, expecting what was sure to come.

Wendy wasn’t a merciful person, she truly wasn’t. Deep down inside she might’ve just been a small, frightened, child who had been separated from everyone she had ever cared about and loved, something that had harmed her so much that she was afraid of ever loving anyone else, simply because she knew that it meant that she would loose them and that she might never see them again. That was why she needed to murder the small animal in front of her, it had taken Abigail’s flower, that flower was the only thing that ensured that no matter what happened, Wendy would always have her sibling with her, and now that safety and security was being threatened, as Wendy could tell that she was near death, and she had never died without being in possession of Abigail’s flower before.

So, the morose little girl stabbed the spear through the younger child’s stomach. It screamed and fell to the ground on its blubbery knees. Wendy pulled her spear out of the monster, producing yet another noise of pain from the horrid animal. The morbid child stabbed at it again, this time in its chest. The Wee Tusk was on the floor now, it was screaming and crying. Wendy pulled her spear out yet again, making the wretched walrus child below her jerk in pain. She stabbed at it once more, inserting the flint right below its ribcage. Wendy didn’t stop, she was ruthless, the young girl continued to shove her spear into the Wee Tusk over and over again. The bloody scene looked similar to an outburst of a small child with a Capri Sun who, in a fit of fury, decided to randomly, and repeatedly, shove the straw of the drink into the juice packet, causing the Capri Sun’s artificially flavored liquid to leak out everywhere due to the multitude of straw wound’s in its plastic covering. Wendy didn’t stop stabbing the child, even after it was no longer moving and was clearly dead. However, the little girl was eventually broken out of her murderous trance.

“OooOoh Oh ooOooh.”

Wendy blinked and seemingly emotionlessly looked down at the crimson sight below her before scooping up the plaid headwear on the Wee Tusk’s head and turning it upside down to remove Abigail’s flower and the silk bracelet encircling it, then she proceeded to gently slip them into her pockets, however she kept a tight grasp onto the red and green hat she was currently holding.

Wendy deeply frowned at the very bloody Wee Tusk at her feet. The little girl wasn’t sad because the small mammal was a child, she had murdered many young creatures before. Nor was she upset about it because it was an intelligent animal, she was a frequent slaughterer of pigs. Rather it was simply that she saw her self in the Wee Tusk’s shoes, and she knew that if Abigail had been killed by another creature then she would’ve taken any opportunity to enact revenge upon her sister’s murderer. However, Wendy hadn’t let the smart little animal take pride and success in the fact that they had managed to avenge their fallen parent, even when Wendy knew that she would die anyways.

 _No,_ Wendy ashamedly thought, _I’m far too heartless for such things._

The little girl’s eyes travelled to the plaid headwear she was currently gripping. Three words came to her mind: Tam o’ Shanter.

The little child didn’t have enough motivation to hold back the tidal wave of pleasant memories from overtaking her.

“Oh Abby, this is a Tam o’ Shanter, this is the thing that his grandpa used to wear.”

Abigail blinked in surprise and floated closer to her sibling to get a better look at the traditional Scottish hat. 

However, before Abigail could get a good look at the plaid bonnet, her sister fell onto her knees.

Wendy couldn’t pay attention to how cold she was getting, focusing on anything was becoming quite difficult, in fact she didn’t have a good enough concentration to check her nearly undetectable pulse.

“He would’ve loved to wear this” Wendy pulled in a ragged breath before continuing “he would be so happy.” 

Wendy’s cold fingers gently caressed the green pompom on top of the Tam o’ Shanter, ignoring the pull inside of her to try to survive and bundle up to the Scottish headwear.

Then, she frowned “but he’s gone now, and she’s gone now too.” Tears formed on her face, and so did a look of anger “and that stupid evil tall man won’t give them back to us. And I want them back, and I need them back, and they make me feel happy.”

Abigail sorrowfully stared at her sister, she knew that it was necessary for Wendy do have to die in order for them to keep searching for their dear friend, Abigail missed them too, and she and her sibling had spent enough time with Willow and Wilson, they were very nice, and Abigail knew that she would miss the adults, but in order to find their friend, Abigail and Wendy needed to go to other islands for the small chance that the evil tall man would take pity on them, or for the slightly higher chance that he would accidentally put their friend in the same world as Abigail and her twin.

Wendy was sobbing now, her head rested against her knees as she slumped down onto the ground, letting her head loll to the side. Her eyelids were getting quite heavy, and the desire to sleep took over her. Soon, she was pulled into a state of unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the next chapter might be a little bit boring for me to write, but it’ll give ya’ll the answer to a very obvious question that I’ve been hinting at for quite a while now. I don’t know when the next chapter will be done, I anticipate that it’ll be made in maybe a week. I think I might take some time to play the Sims 4 a bit more, ‘cause last night I had a pretty wacky dream about a sorta crossover between the Sims 4 and Don’t Starve Together, and I think that my brain is tryin’ to tell me that I need to stop writing’ for a little while and play some Sims 4, either that or its telling me to create the Don’t Starve characters in my game. Anyways, I managed to write down my crazy dream before I forgot about it!
> 
> “So I had a weird dream last night that I was playing the Sims 4 and Ms.Wickerbottom, Warly, Maxwell, and Charlie were all in this dream, and for some odd reason, Charlie had a romantic relationship with both Maxwell and Warly. And, Ms. Wickerbottom had terrible hair, it was obviously a wig ( and this wig certainly didn’t look good ). But, it wasn’t the regular sort of Sims 4 ‘cause they weren’t talking in simish ( sim people language ) instead they were having very dramatic conversations in English with one another, I think that they were trying to solve some sort of mystery, but I forget what it was. Also, they did that annoying thing where everybody’s hungry so one person walks up to the fridge and starts to make one plate of something for themselves rather than going through the same amount of effort to make eight plates full of food for the entire household. It’s every creature for themselves I suppose.”


	12. Chapter 12 - The Painful Dream - Day 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a filler chapter; however, you don't need to read it to understand the plot of this fan-fic. Basically, this chapter is skippable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some violence and a few mentions of blood, but no torture.
> 
> Also, yea it took me longer than a week to upload this chapter, sorry about that. I got addicted to Sims 4 again, and shortly after I managed to get myself to stop playing it, I discovered dedicated servers on DST, and gosh, there is some crazily good gamers on there. Seriously, exploring the ruins before winter even comes is amazing. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

The loud and unpleasant sound of barking filled her ears.

 _And I thought that my death was going to give me a small, but peaceful, break from my pitiful existence, yet here I am, in this dreadful dream again,_ Wendy thought in despair.

“That’s not good” their sweet, yet scratchy, voice said.

They were back in the same old birch nut forest again, for Wendy, it was annoyingly familiar.

She miserabley pushed herself off of the grassy forest floor.

_At least this warmth and green grass is a pleasant change from the continual coldness and snowfall I’ve grown so accustomed to._

Wendy stepped in front of her friend with her back facing them and her eyes scanning the birch nut forest for the inevitable wave of hounds that would be coming for them. She pulled her spear out from one of her pockets, it was pretty new and it had yet to be covered in any blood, since she had yet to attack anything with it besides the clockwork beasts that her friend had been so cruelly injured from.

“Hopefully the evil tall man is only sending two of them” they nervously said, it was hard for Wendy to hear her friend amongst the sounds of the hounds baying in the distance.

“Stop worrying, we’ll be fine” the little girl assertively replied.

_No, we won’t be._

“Wendy” they whimpered “we’re in a really bad situation.”

“No we’re not” Wendy confidently countered “it’s not as if I haven’t protected you from hound attacks before.”

_I’ve heard that line come out of my mouth so many times before…yes, I get it dream, I was wrong to assume that they'd survive this battle._

“Yea, but we don’t have any medical equipment left” her friend stated.

For a few moments the only sounds they could hear were the barks of the approaching hounds.

Then, their hoarse voice spoke once more, they were barely audible amongst the sounds of the baying beasts “somebody could die.”

_Somebody does die: you…I wish it had been me._

Wendy stepped back and put a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. Her ally looked up at her, their pure white eyes were locked onto her light blue eyes. Her companion looked both scared and concerned, but their innocent eyes looked up at her without malice or hate, they were pleading with her like the Wee Tusk had, except her dear friend genuinely liked her.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep us safe” Wendy said.

Unlike with the Wee Tusk, Wendy would never kill her friend, her traveling companion had found a special place in her heart, and she would do almost anything to keep them out of harms way. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how much she cared about them, they would always die in this dream no matter what, but Wendy still couldn’t bring herself to not fight for their life every time she was shoved into this wretched nightmare.

“We’ll get through this just like we’ve gotten through every other hardship we’ve been faced with” she told them.

Her companions facial expression didn’t change, they still looked quite worried.

Wendy removed her hand from their shoulder and placed it on the top of their head where she petted them like a cat, resulting in some happy purring sounds coming from her best friend.

“If it makes you fell any better, I can call forth Abby” Wendy calmly offered, her face still remaining devoid of any emotions.

Her ally eagerly nodded whilst they gently leaned into Wendy’s scratches on the top of their head, they always had been a very quirky creature.

With Wendy’s other hand, she pulled out a light pink flower from one of her pockets. She lifted her other hand off of her friend’s head and brought both of her hands to the bottom of the special flower, lifting the pink blossom up to her mouth.

Then, Wendy whispered to it “we know that you’re tired, but we can’t do this alone.”

The little girl gently tossed the closed-up flower into the air, and in only a couple of seconds, the blossom’s light pink shade faded into a pretty red color, and its soft, dainty, petals ripped themselves apart from each other before rising into the air above Wendy’s now pigtailed head. Then, they elegantly swooped back down to her palms, magically forming the powerful flower once more.

Wendy turned her head to see the ghostly form of her sister rise up from the snow-less ground, and upon hearing the baying of the nearby hounds, she said “OoooOh!”

The twin’s best friend spoke in an apologetic tone “hey Abby, sorry for waking you up, but as you can see, or rather, hear, we need all the help we can get.”

Abigail nodded in understanding, then she gracefully floated towards their injured comrade in order to provide them with better protection.

Wendy lightly smiled at her best friend, and patted the top of their head “we’ll be okay.”

Her ally’s eyes darted up to Wendy’s face, they still looked nervous, and they hesitantly asked their best friend “promise?”

The young girl assuredly answered “promise.”

Guilt ran through Wendy as she thought with regret, _I never should’ve made that promise to them, I always break it._

Although they were still visibly nervous, her traveling companion smiled, and being careful not to hurt themself, they reached for, and quickly hugged, their friend’s red and white stocking covered leg.

_I remember how they used to say that my legs were like candy canes, Wendy reminisced, those were the good old days._

Wendy slightly smiled before returning to her previous position in front of her friend scanning the horizon for the very soon to come hounds.

Suddenly, her ally yelled “on your left!”

That was the signal, all control that this nightmare had on Wendy’s body and voice was broken, leaving her to make whatever battle decisions she desired to make.

This time, instead of running at the hound, she waited for it to reach her. This wasn’t a new battle strategy, she had used it several times before, and it always had the same end result, death for her best friend.

The approaching hound looked at Wendy with anger, determination, and confidence. That was the normal arrogant look of the creatures, Wendy despised their species. However, she could give them some empathy, after all, the entirety of their lives was usually simply to commit suicide by running at one of the constant’s survivors and creating a minor annoyance.

But this time meant a lot more to Wendy than just a minor annoyance.

The snarling beast continued to run at her, its clawed feet pressed into the ground, scraping up little clumps of Earth as it ran.

Wendy simply stood there, waiting for it to be close enough to attack, the little girl was experienced in fighting, after close to a decade of being in the constant it was hard not to be. She had learned that it was always good to have the element of surprise with you, so, she stood stock still, not in any sort of battle position, with her weapon hidden behind her back.

The beast was closing in on her, its jaws were open wide they were preparing to bite into her flesh. 

Now, it was only a yard away.

In movements so fast she looked like a yellow, white, and red blur, Wendy sidestepped the monster. It nearly lost its balance having expected to run into what it considered its prey only to find air where she previously stood. Its unstable footing is similar to the feeling one might feel if they thought there was one more step left when they were at the top of a flight of stairs, and instead of having their foot hit ground one would discover that there was no more stairs left to step on.

Wendy used its disoriented state to her advantage, she moved her spear behind its front leg that was closest to her and, in a way, swept its leg, causing it to topple over onto its side. It, of course, did not like being pushed over onto its side, so it fought to sit up, but before it could do so, Wendy pressed her foot onto it in an attempt to keep it down while she raised her spear to jab it into the hound. Unfortunately, putting her foot on the beast was an unwise decision as the hound was far stronger than frail, ten-year-old, Wendy. It whipped itself up to its feet, causing her foot to be pushed upwards, and this sudden motion caused the little girl to topple to the ground, roughly hitting her back onto the grass covered dirt.

_At least thats one good thing about snow, its a better cushion than the usual ground._

The hound lunged for her leg, luckily Wendy had quick instincts and pulled her limb away from its maw, however she must’ve not been quick enough as the monster managed to grab her foot in its jaws.

Wendy yelped, its teeth were painfully digging into her ankle. And with a fit of both screams and barks of pain, Wendy desperately and randomly jabbed her spear at the hounds face over and over again, each time spraying the two of them in more and more purple monster blood, oh and an eye that managed to shoot out of the beasts face and bounce off of Wendy’s cheek after she stabbed her spear right next to its eye socket. But even after experiencing several stabs to the face, the hound still bit onto her ankle hardly, well it did eventually stop, but that was only because it was dead.

Wendy’s hands grabbed at its jaws, easily prying them off of her foot as she gently brought it out of the creatures maw.

It looked terrible.

Everything below the bite marks impeded into her flesh was coated in either her blood or hound saliva.

But right now, her injury that would’ve normally needed immediate medical attention was of little care to Wendy, what she did care about was the hound running at her best friend.

The little girl staggered to her feet and ran, in a limping manner, towards the next hound, however this hound was greeted not by Wendy, but her sister.

The hound was distracted by her sister and was facing the opposite direction, so Wendy did what any injured ten-year-old welding a weapon would do, She jumped on top of it, buckled her legs around its waist, and began to repeatedly stab her spear into its tough hide.

The monster was barely being harmed by Abigail, after all, it was still daytime, her attacks did little damage to it. So, it ignored the ghost and focused on the bigger problem at hand, also known as the little girl sitting on top of its back like she was riding a horse whilst causing detrimental spear wounds to its backside.

Luckily for Wendy, hounds are idiots.

The monster ran around in circles snarling and barking at her to get off of its back. If it was smarter, it would’ve tried to roll over and therefore push her off of its back, but it was mentally incapable of the not-that-complex thought process, so Wendy easily killed it.

The third hound was speeding towards Wendy’s best friend. Its eyes were hungry as it stared at the fearful creature in front of it. Her ally winced in anticipation for the hound’s teeth to sink into them, but found themselves being saved by Wendy launching herself spear first at the monster.

The beast barked in pain at its little attacker and did what was deemed natural for a hound to do, it bit into its onslaughter.

Wendy screamed as the animal craned its virtually nonexistent neck at the little girl and sunk its teeth into her thigh.

Then, it yanked Wendy onto the ground by its grip on her upper leg. Due to the pain, the small child had loosened her grip on the spear, allowing the beast to pull her from her standing position with ease, separating Wendy from her weapon. Its claw quickly pinned her chest to the floor and it allowed its claws to dig into her flesh, then the monster shifted all of its weight to the leg holding her down.

Wendy couldn’t breathe as she desperately tried to push the hound-leg off of her. Not often did she find herself in near death situations in her nightmare, and she had never actually died from these dream dwelling beasts.

_Theres a first for everything, I suppose._

It opened up its jaws once more to bite her at a more lethal spot than her thigh. However, before it could, it felt yet another sharp pain at its side. It thrust its head towards the source. Abigail floated there, an angry and determined expression riddled her face. The hound snapped its mouth at Abigail instead, however the little specter successfully dodged it. The small ghost drifted to stand behind the monster and began to attack its backside. 

The hound looked between the helpless prey beneath its foot and the dangerous ghost that was currently injuring it, and unlike the last hound, it decided to try an harm Abigail. This choice left Wendy enough time to painfully half-jump half-stagger up from her spot on the ground and roughly pull her spear out of its side. Then, I bet you can guess what happened next, Wendy, with the help of Abigail, stabbed it to death.

 _Where’s the fourth hou-_ “NO!” Wendy both thought and screamed.

“WENDY!” her dear friend suddenly shrieked.

Then, the fourth hound opened up its maw to a towering height. Her ally desperately tried to scoot away from the fiend, which during the time that this event actually occurred was probably horribly painful due to their two severely broken legs. The monster proceeded to bite into one of the legs of her long lost friend, causing the child to scream in pure agony. The beast dragged its victim towards itself until it stood directly above Wendy’s shrieking, and struggling, companion.

The hound opened up its maw, which was lined in large, yet sharp, teeth, and bit into its prey’s stomach, tearing their flesh away from their body with ease.

“STOP IT!” Wendy screamed “STOP!”

The hound of course didn’t listen to her as it mercilessly tore at her ally’s insides. Her friend tried to shove the monster off of them, but they couldn’t, hounds might’ve been dumb, but they were certainly strong.

Wendy painfully rushed to her companions side and pushed her spear into the beasts throat. It unhesitantly turned its attention over to Wendy and the ghost that was speedily approaching it. 

In less than half a minute, its corpse hung from a birch nut tree by Wendys very bloody spear.

Unfortunately, while they were trying to kill it, the wretched hound managed to ‘kill’ if one even considered it that, Abigail. Wendy had anticipated her death though, not once had Abigail ever survived long enough to see their best friend die, just like when the traumatic event had actually occurred. 

The bereaved little girl rushed to her friend’s side, they were trying to stop their bleeding with the use of grass. Wendy reached into her pockets and tried to help them.

After less than a minute, her friend’s scratchy voice rang out “I don’t think that we can stop the bleeding.”

Wendy bit her lip and paused for a moment before continuing to try an stop her ally from bleeding to death, even though she knew that she would never be able to prevent her companion from dying

_I just have to try, I can’t not attempt to save them._

“Wendy” her friend’s hand gently grabbed her own “we’re going to die.”

It was at this point Wendy realized that she was heavily crying, she didn’t know when her tears had started to fall, perhaps when her thigh was bitten into, when her ally was injured by the fourth hound, or right when she began to stop their bleeding.

“I know” she weakly answered back, almost whispering through sobs.

When this dream had actually occurred, she had denied them dying, she thought that she could save them, but somewhere deep down inside she knew that they would die. However, in her nightmare she could say whatever she wanted to, and her ally would respond in the way that she expected them to respond, so a lot of what they said wasn’t actually said at the time of their death, well, except for all the heart felt stuff that they told her before they went unconscious, all that they had actually said to her.

Her best friend was crying too, but it seemed that they were either trying to be calm for her, or the shock just hadn’t sunk in yet.

“Lets say our goodbyes, okay?” They said with a slight, forced, smile.

Normally, she was the responsible one that made sure that her ally didn’t panic and loose their marbles, but during the event…they were surprisingly calm.

Wendy far too emotional to respond, so she simply nodded.

“Thats good…Wendy, we are so glad that we met you and Abby, we used to hate humans, well, one of us still kinda does…but you, a human, are so…amazing. All of the other human children, they’re jerks, they only see life on a surface level and they hate everyone thats different from them. But you don’t do that, you’re so deep and smart and progressive and you have never been afraid to think about the meaning behind everything, whether that meaning is riddled with sadness or not. And, you aren’t afraid of who you are, we’ve never seen you wipe away or try to hold back your tears, you’re so brave. You don’t care that we’re total weirdos, you don’t care that we look horrifying or that we don’t fit in, you and Abby are the only other children that our human side has met who hasn’t outcasted, or talked negatively to, him. We don’t get why, but you’re so different and special. We love that about you, thats why you’re such an amazing friend, and we won’t ever forget you. We friendlily love you so much, and we’ll miss you and Abby eternally and forever and we’ll try our hardest to get back to the two of you, because you’re the bestest best friend that anybody could ask for.”

Wendy had stopped trying to prevent her companion from bleeding out, in real life she hadn’t stopped even after they very clearly weren’t going to survive. 

Wendy sobbed “I love you two too…as friends.”

Even if Wendy poured her heart out to her companion just like they had just done to her, it wouldn’t matter, they would never be able to actually hear her, this was just a dream after all.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you” she whispered under her breathe, but of course her ally heard her, their ears were designed for hearing even the slightest movement of an attacker at a spider den.

“Thats alright, you did an awesome job” they tried to crack some sort of joke to get Wendy to relax “they’ll call you hound-murderer-Wendy ‘cause you’re really good at killing those jerks.”

They didn’t actually say that in real life, it was just what Wendy thought that they would say, they were always so happy-go-lucky, just like Abigail, trying to brighten up the worst of situations.

Her friend frowned, they could tell that being humorous wasn’t exactly helping Wendy.

They painfully sat up and wrapped their arms around their companion. Wendy immediately returned the hug, she didn’t want to let go, she never wanted to let go, she just wanted to keep them by her side forever, but she knew that death always took them away from her. Everything about them in her dream was exactly the way they looked like in real life, their soft black fur, their eight round eyes, their expressionate spidery limbs at the sides of their head, it was like they were actually there and she was actually hugging them.

_They always loved hugs, especially their human side._

“Goodbye, Wendy.”

“Goodbye, Webber.”

The little girl could feel their reddish purplish blood staining her white shirt, just like how they had dyed a long piece of silk in their blood to make all three of them friendship bracelets. It was the only thing she had left of them, besides memories.

“I will never stop searching for you two, I’m going to have both of you back someday, you wonderful weirdos.”

Her friend didn’t respond, Wendy pulled away from their hug, Webber didn’t comply with pulling away and instead weakly leaned up against her.

_Why do you always have to go unconscious so quickly?_

Her hands grasped their shoulders and lifted them off of herself. Her friend’s head hung low and limp like a corpse. Wendy moved her left hand to her friends chin and gently tilted it, along with their head, up. Her hand moved to cup their cheek, something that she would probably never have the privilege of doing in real life. 

Yes, Webber was right about them being a bit ugly, but Wendy could care less about their looks, it was what was on the inside that mattered, not about what was on the outside, and Webber’s inside was so sweet, kind, and ridiculously loyal. Besides, they weren’t _that_ ugly, they were more creepily cute if anything.

_Until I dream again, my dear friend._

Wendy lowered her ally onto the ground, it was hard to see them like this, unmoving, weak, injured, but she was accustomed to it, but that was only because she kept seeing them like this every time she had this dream.

“I miss you so much.”

After a few more seconds of tearfully, yet peacefully, staring at her beloved best friend, Webber suddenly poofed into a child-sized skeleton, and all of the contents of their pockets spilled onto the floor, nearly burying them in their own stuff.

And, just as suddenly, Wendy’s vision began to become faded, her thigh and ankle injuries started to hurt less, and she didn’t feel very connected to her dream.

She was waking up.

_Here we go, a new island, another chance to be reunited with Webber._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a surprise ( sarcasm ) it was Webber all along, I gave absolutely no hints to this whatsoever, I bet ya'll are shocked. 
> 
> WARNING! SPOILERS DOWN BELOW!
> 
> So, I'm going to wait until the Webber update is done to add any more chapters, I think that they're the next character to be refreshed but I don't know for sure. I may alter some things from their short to fit in with this fan-fic, as in, if Wagstaff is their parent, then I'm going to ignore that fact about Webber. In the meantime I will be writing and editing more chapters. So, hopefully if Webber's short at least kinda goes along with the backstory I have written for them, then I might have an explosion of chapters after their short is released. Until then, please be patient. 
> 
> If Webber isn't the next character being refreshed, then I may release one more chapter, and I'll try to not mention anything about how and why Webber got into the constant and met Wendy.
> 
> Anyways, bye-bye and have a great day!


	13. Chapter 13 - Hope - Day 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This definitely isn't a filler chapter. It's important that you read this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross your fingers that the next update is Webber's character refresh.

Wendy awoke, but before she even opened her eyes, she could tell that something was wrong. Normally upon awaking in a world she would be lying down horizontally now she was sitting up vertically. Also, she felt a bit cold, but whatever was wrapped around her was certainly warm. Not only this, but she could feel a few somewhat fresh injuries on her shoulder and neck.

She slowly opened her eyes.

 _Oh come on,_ Wendy thought to herself in annoyance.

She was bundled up in not only her blue puffy vest but two orange breezy vests as well. She was using two beefalo hats to protect herself from the cold; one of them was used as a hat, the other was used as a hand warmer. And, in front of her was a large, warm, campfire with two charcoal-haired adults sitting next to it who were staring very worriedly at Wendy.

“I want Abby” Wendy assertively said.

Abbigail floated right in front of Wendy and allowed her sister to wrap her hands around her ghostly body as if she was hugging her.

Wendy could feel icy cold tears on her cheeks.

 _I was crying in my sleep? How wonderful._ Wendy sarcastically thought.

“We tried to wake you up, but we umm were unsuccessful…” Wilson nervously trailed off.

“Why didn’t you just let me die?!” Wendy suddenly, and angrily, blurted out.

She received no answers, perhaps the adults were too afraid that she’d yell at them, which was something that she was very prepared to do.

Now, in order to get to a new island, she would need to go through the painful process of committing suicide and she would be forced to undergo her dream once more.

Eventually, Willow spoke “Wendy, who’s Webber?”

Wendy froze and thought, _how does she know their name?_

“Nobody” Wendy quietly answered.

_Was I talking in my sleep? I was crying in my sleep, so that possibility isn’t all that unlikely…_

“Me and Wilson think that we can help you” Willow stated. “We just need to know for sure if Webber is from the constant.”

“They are” Wendy answered.

Willow and Wilson exchanged knowing looks

“There’s a lot of stuff that me and Wilson haven’t told you two about” Willow revealed.

Wilson said “Thats because they never asked about anyth-“

“Shush, Wilson” Willow commanded with an eye-roll. “Okay, so I’ll fill you in on the details while you try your hardest to get warmed up.”

Wendy nodded, however she didn’t let go of her sister, Abby provided her with a nice feeling of comfort.

“So” Willow started “Wilson did this whole adventure thing with some portals and danger and stuff and he eventually arrived at an island that contained the throne room of the evil tall man, also known as, Maxwell.”

_Oh, so thats what his wretched name is._

“And he expected that Maxwell would let him go back home, but he was wrong. As it turns out, Maxwell was just as much of a prisoner here as we are, he actually isn’t the one pulling the strings, he just does whatever ‘they’, I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but whoever ‘they’ are, ‘they’ told Maxwell to do a lot of stuff that he didn’t want to do.“

“Well” Wilson interrupted “he did do a lot of bad things without ‘their’ influence.”

“Yeah, thats true, but stop interrupting me” Willow grumbled. “Anyways, the point is, Wilson couldn’t go back home. Actually he couldn’t really go anywhere, he was trapped in Maxwells throne room, apparently, for whatever the reason, ‘they’ didn’t want anybody to escape that island. So, Wilson couldn’t get out of there even if he or Maxwell wanted him to. Due to this, Wilson had two choices. One, either stay there for a really long time and be stuck in the same place as Maxwell. Or two, he could replace Maxwell on his evil little throne. Guess what option he chose?”

“He chose to replace Maxwell on the throne because that seems like a better fate than being near him for a prolonged period of time” Wendy answered.

“Correct!” Willow exclaimed. “And after that” Willow continued “Wilson got stuck on his throne called the…something throne for a little bit.”

“Why did he get stuck on this throne?” Wendy asked.

“I got stuck on the _nightmare_ throne because ‘they’ intended to keep me there against my will and use me as a ‘puppet’, just like they had done with Maxwell” Wilson explained.

“But, he didn’t stay there for long” Willow noted “pretty soon a lady who me and Wilson are calling the okay tall lady after your name for Maxwell, showed up. This lady acted all nice and stuff and freed Wilson from the throne, but she suddenly got angry and mean-faced and she put Wilson through a lot of pain before he went unconscious. When he woke up, he found himself here on the first day of fall.”

Wilson pointed out “I’m pretty sure that there’s more going on that we just don’t know about regarding the okay tall lady.”

“Maybe…but I don’t like people who replace fires with darkness. “ Willow stated. “Anyways, Wilson was making a modest base when Maxwell showed up at his camp. Long story short, it wasn’t a pleasant reunion. But, after a few days, Wilson learned about something called the Jury-Rigged Portal. This portal was originally supposed to bring everyone trapped in the constant to this island in only about a minute, however for an unknown reason, magic vines shot out of the ground and replaced the creepy and ugly looking Jury-Rigged Portal with an even creepier, but beautiful, portal called the Florid Postern.”

_I recognize that name, thats what I arrived here through._

“The Florid Postern works a bit differently.” Willow explained “whenever somebody gets close to a completed Teleportato they get wooshed away to our island’s Florid Postern.”

The twins eyes grew wide. Wendy quickly stumbled to her feet and Abigail floated to be positioned right above the head of her sister.

“So what you’re saying is that Webber could be on this island?” Wendy eagerly asked.

“Exactly” Willow confirmed. “But, they might’ve died if they came here during winter.”

The twin’s excited faces fell.

“We have yet to figure out what happens after death on this island” Wilson noted, then he added “if your friend is still alive then they’re probably at the other base.”

“Wherever that is, we have to go there right now” Wendy commanded.

“But we need to get back home to feed Ms.Tweeters” Wilson nervously replied.

“I hate your dumb bird” Wendy stated.

“OooOoh Oh ooOooh” Abigail commented.

“Okay, listen up, I’ve got an obvious solution” Willow said a bit loudly. “Me and the twins can go to the other base while Wilson goes home and feeds Ms.Tweeters. Does that work for all of you?”

Wilson and the twins nodded in agreement.

“Good” Willow said “okay, Wendy, do you think that you’re warm enough to begin traveling?”

Normally, Wendy would’ve made a comment about how inside her icy heart could never be thawed, but this situation called for a quick response.

“Yes!” The little girl exclaimed as she began to shove off the adults winter gear from her frail frame.

The adults put their warm clothing back on, and as soon as Willow was ready, she headed in the direction of the other base with the little siblings in tow.

After traveling for a few hours and going through a disgusting wormhole, the group of three were in sight of this other base.

What Willow hadn’t gotten around to explaining was that after the Florid Postern was created, Maxwell and Wilson decided to split apart, this was due to Wilson despising Maxwell and Maxwell not liking him that much either. However, by that time, three other members of the constant had come out of the Florid Postern, and they were each given three choices. One, help Wilson create another base. Two, stay at Wilson’s previous base that Maxwell had rudely claimed as his own. Or three, make your own base. Nobody chose the third option, they were all pretty lonely and preferred to be with people over being without people. 

The first person to choose what option she wanted to take was a librarian named Ms.Wickerbottom, she decided on option number two, simply because she felt that Maxwell needed to be taught some manners, and because she was skilled at base survival and he was new at it.

Willow was the second to choose. Although she wasn’t mad at Maxwell for taking her into the constant, the dapper man was egotistical and liked to be in control. Wilson on the other hand was nervous and passive. So, due to Willow wanting to be a bit bossy, she chose the first option. Also, she didn’t want to be stuck in the same base as Ms.Wickerbottom. 

The third person decided to go with the second option, not because he and Maxwell got along with each other, ‘cause they definitely didn’t, but because he wanted Ms.Wickerbottom to teach him sign language. It surprised Willow that the librarian even knew that language because its not like anybody writes books with drawings of hands. The old librarian seemed to have loved reading books, so Willow determined that it definitely didn’t make sense that she spent her time learning a non-written language rather than learning a written one.

After they had all decided what options they would take, the group went their separate ways and Willow hadn’t seem any of them since then.

Wendy stared at this other base in awe.

_And I thought that Willow and Wilson’s base was amazing._

All that Wendy could see were some tall stone walls and various farms and animal pens outside of them. There was of course the regular farm area and it still contained some unpicked dragon fruit in it. There was also an area designated to some already cut grass with odd grass-colored reptiles roaming inside a wooden fence that surrounded it. In another spot that was situated slightly away from the base was both types of koalefants that were also fenced in with wooden walls. There was a standard, but large, twig farm. In an area touching the base’s stone walls was another wooden pen that contained various flowers from the constant and a sleeping catcoon. Not only this, but there was a berry farm too, and at the center of these bushes was a wooden pen with a lightning rod inside of it.

The trio walked inside of the base.

Wendy didn’t know about a third of the things in there, but from what she could see the small child could tell that the base was very advanced. There was several crockpots and a few iceboxes in one corner of the base. In another corner was a group of drying racks with various pieces of meat tied to them. In an opposite corner sat lots of chests, and right next to each of these wooden storages stood tiny wooden signs that showed what each chest contained. And in the last corner was two tents and some medical supplies. In the center of the base was a fire pit, some high-level crafting machines, a few tree stumps, and an elderly woman who was writing on the page of a book whilst she sat on one of these stumps.

This older lady wore a checkered yellow shirt along with a long, modest, red skirt. Beneath this she wore some black tights and a pair of oversized white shoes that resembled wooden clogs. On her face sat glasses in the shape of rectangles. Her shining gray hair was tightly secured in a bun. The elders face was riddled in the wrinkles of old age, and her lips were scrunched up together in a disapproving frown. She looked like your classic, old, strict, early nineteenth century teacher that found no greater joy than rapping students knuckles with rulers.

Willow walked towards this older woman while the twins stood at the entrance of the amazing base.

The arsonist spoke “hey Ms.Wickerbottom me an-“

“Heavens sakes Willow! You must knock on the gate before you enter!” Ws.Wickerbottom exclaimed. “You nearly made me mess up my writing.” She scolded “you really ought to learn some manners young lady.”

Willow sighed in annoyance “anyways, me and some new members of Wilsons base w-“

“Some new members of Wilson’s base and I” Ms.Wickerbottom corrected.

Willow grumbled “mhm, so we were wondering if you managed to receive any new base-mates.”

Ms.Wickerbottom smiled “actually, yes, a few days ago we did receive a fourth member of our base.”

The twins exchanged excited looks.

“What’s their name?” Willow asked. She too was a bit excited.

“Her name is Winona” Ms.Wickerbottom proudly stated.

Willow and the twins slumped in defeat.

Ms.Wickerbottom noticed Willow’s change in body language.

“You were looking for somebody specific, weren’t you?” The librarian queried.

“Yea“ Willow replied.

“Yes” the elder corrected.

“Well we’d better get going, so good-bye” Willow stated as she rotated on her heels. As she viewed it, the less time she had to spend with the old prune the better.

“Wait” Wendy said a bit loudly. “Can you please bring Maxwell over here? I wish to ask him a few questions before we depart.”

Ms.Wickerbottom turned her head to look at the source of the voice, and in a mix between horror and surprise she said “heavens! Maxwell brought children to the constant?”

“Yes” Wendy responded. She was a bit annoyed by the question that she viewed as being very off-topic.

Ms.Wickerbottom sighed “that man is in for quite the scolding. Unfortunately, I don’t have any soap to wash his mouth with…” she trailed off. “I’ll go get him for you.”

After the librarian was out of sight, Wendy stated “it seems that the two of you don’t get along, Willow.”

“Your right” the young woman responded “we really don’t.”

“My friend Webber wouldn’t get along with her either.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old is Webber?”

“They’re ten.”

“Thats good to hear, I was sorta worried that Webber was some creepy old dude.”

“They are creepy, but they certainly aren’t old, nor are they a dude.”

“So ‘they’ as in non-binary?”

“Kinda…well, not really…if we find them then I’ll explain their situation to you.”

“Alright, I’m cool with that”

After their conversation ended, the three sat in silence until they could hear the loud voice of Ms.Wickerbottom in the distance.

“Do you hear me!? _Never_ send children to an awful place like this!”

“Yes, I know! But they’re here now, and there isn’t anything I can do about it!”

Willow and the twins discovered an angry Ms.Wickerbottom tugging a very grumpy Maxwell into the base by his ear.

Abigail couldn’t help but snicker a little bit at the comical sight.

Upon reaching the base the librarian let go of her hold on his ear and looked to her camp’s visitors “ask him whatever you want to dears. I’ll leave you to your questioning.” She looked back at Maxwell “we will continue our conversation at a later time.” Then, she turned around and began to walk away, and as she did so she stated “oh and by the way we have a tell-tale heart in one of our chests for your little non-corporeal friend.”

Wendy sighed and thought, _that won’t work._

The little girl proceeded to look at Willow “I would like to chat with the evi-I mean-Maxwell with only my sister.”

Willow respectfully nodded “just walk over to me when you’re done” then she turned around and walked in the opposite direction that Wickerbottom had walked in.

The former king of the nightmare throne wore fancy and well-kept clothing, but Wendy’s was raggedy, dirty, and blood-stained, and Abigail didn’t even have clothes. Whereas the flower in Maxwell’s suit pocket was eternally alive and unnaturally healthy, the twins flower’s cloud never die and they always seemed close to the brink of death. Maxwell’s black hair, although thinning, was nicely combed and well taken care of, Wendy’s messy and dirty hair had been sloppily cut short and was stained in enough blood that even washing it wouldn’t return it to its previously entirely blonde state. His face was nice and clean, but hers was covered in dirt, blood, and several scars. 

Wendy spoke “it seems that the king has been dethroned.”

Maxwell grumbled “you’re correct, I’m no longer a king.”

The twins glared up at him, intense hatred shone in their eyes.

“Now you’re a pawn too. How does _this_ feel Maxwell?”

Instead of responding he slowly looked away in shame.

The little girl spoke once more “for years I’ve wished that you would experience the torment of your own creation, but even now you live a life of luxury in this excellent base. You will never truly know what it’s like to feel the pain that I’ve felt. Nor the pain that Abby or Webber has experienced.”

“I’ve felt a lot of pain before” Maxwell mumbled.

“Oh? So you’ve been forcefully torn away from everyone you’ve ever loved and cared about? You’ve had to survive in a wilderness filled with so many creatures trying to devour you that you’ve stayed awake some nights just to try and survive? You’ve had to die over and over again in various painful and cruel ways? All that you’ve had to do was sit on a throne and do a few of ‘their’ orders.”

“The throne was very uncomfortable” Maxwell countered

“Yes, but so is sleeping on the cold, hard, ground.” Wendy sighed “I have a lot of questions but I have three that I desire to currently ask you. First, why have you never revived Abigail? I know that you have the ability to bring people back to life so why didn’t you bring her back to the realm of the living?”

“I wasn’t allowed to do so.”

“Let me guess, ‘they’ told you to not revive her?”

_I’m not even sure if ‘they’ are even real, Wendy thought. Perhaps Maxwell telling Wilson that ‘they’ made him do several unethical things was really just an excuse for his horrible behavior._

“Exactly.”

“Now why would ‘they’ do that?”

“Her name doesn’t start with the letter W.”

Wendy paused for a moment of thought.

“But your name doesn’t start with a W and you’re alive.”

“Thats…complicated, and quite personal. Whats you next question?”

“Why didn’t you return Webber to us?”

“They made me not do so. Corporeal people traveling together made survival in the constant incredibly easy. Too easy.” He sighed “trust me when I say that I would’ve preferred not separating Webber from the two of you. All four of you used to be the most interesting survivors to watch.”

“Its horrible and twisted to find delight in the suffering of children.”

“At the time I didn’t think of it like _that_.”

“Was Webber regularly traveling through Teleportatos before I was sent to this island.”

“Webber was still traversing via Teleportatos when I was last on my throne, and as far as I’m aware they had no intention on stopping doing so.”

Wendy nodded.

Maxwells face softened “I’m sure that the two of you will be reunited with them fairly soon. All that you have to do is search around the island for a tad bit.”

“Please don’t get my hopes up.”

“My apologies.”

Wendy walked outside of the base to see Willow standing in the tree line. The young woman was playing with her teddy companion Bernie. 

Wendy began to walk towards her when Maxwell said “before you leave, take some food with you.”

The dapper fellow was motioning towards the corner of his base that contained crockpots and ice boxes.

“Take what you need, make sure to grab enough for three people.”

The twins nodded, and although letting them have some food from his base was nice and all, the little girls made sure to not thank him.

Upon grabbing enough crock pot dishes, Wendy once again walked over to Willow.

“Hey kiddos” the fire starter said in greeting.

“Hello, Willow”

“Oooh”

“We desire to continue our search for our friend elsewhere” Wendy explained “and we’re going to do it whether you’ll accompany us or not.”

Willow raised an eyebrow in amusement “if you think I’m going to let Ms.Almost-freeze-to-death travel by herself, then you’re crazy.”

“I assure you, I am not ‘crazy’. It’s quite obvious when my sanity is low.”

Willow rolled her eyes “c’mon lets get a move on.”

The arsonist started walking in a random direction only to realize that neither of the twins were walking beside her. She looked back to see a confused, yet patient, Abigail staring at her sibling, and Wendy looking to be in deep thought.

“What is it?” Willow asked with concern.

“What do we do if it turns out they’re dead?”

Willow frowned.

Wendy said “We’ve been searching for them for years, if it turns out they died and were sent away from this island simply because I didn’t have the curiosity to ask about why this isle is so odd then I…I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Willow walked towards Wendy and crouched down in front of her “If they died then we can keep searching for them. We have a whole bunch of people on this island, two of which have magical book-things that will be able to assist you in being reunited with your friend. The woman currently running this place seems intent upon bringing all of the survivors together onto this island, so I’m sure she’ll make sure that Webber gets stuck here too, whether they’ve died or not. Besides, if Webber is anything like you, they’re a tough person, and there’s a pretty good chance that they survived.”

A few silent tears trailed down Wendy’s cheeks. The little girl sniffled and with a slight smile she replied “you’re right, they are tough.”

Willow thought, _besides when she’s torturing creatures or talking about death, this is the first time I’ve seen Wendy smile. Huh, she’s pretty adorable when she’s smiling._

Then, Wendy did something a bit unexpected, she hugged Willow.

“Thank you” the small child said.

“For what?” Willow asked in a surprised and confused tone.

“For everything” the little girl answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You would think that after seventeen days I would have written a lot of chapters, and you might be disappointed to learn that I've only written this chapter and chapter fourteen. So, to make myself wright more chapters, I'm gonna make myself stop playing the sims for a while. Anyways, I thought that we were done with sea updates, but nope, I was totally wrong. Hopefully August's update won't be WX-78s character refresh. Also, for everybody reading this note slide, ya'll are aware that this is gonna be a Webber/Wendy fan-fic, right? As in, if you don't support this ship, then you might want to stop reading this fan-fic ( eventually I'll tag this to be a Webber/Wendy fan-fic, but not yet ).
> 
> Replying To A Comment Time
> 
> frickle pickle on Chapter 5
> 
> RIP Webber
> 
> So it was obvious!
> 
> Also, from now on, I think I'll be replying to comments in the normal way.
> 
> Bye-bye and have a fantastic day! I'm gonna eat some lunch!


	14. Chapter 14 - The Two Sides Of A Hybrid - Day 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a filler chapter. However, this is skippable. But, I still suggest that you read this chapter. It introduces you to the second main character/characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My patience has run out Klei.
> 
> On a side note, I've been dreaming about Don't Starve for three nights in a row.

( Okay ya’ll, we’re time travelin’ a little bit. We’re going back a few hours so that this is the _morning_ of day thirty one. Also, yea, day thirty one has been going on for a long time now ).

Her eyes cracked open as the arachnids noisily skittered back to their dens. A warrior spider that, for whatever the reason, was nestled in the crook of her arm, stood up. He proceeded to hiss at the sunrise in annoyance before scurrying back to the tier three spider den he called his home.

Webber squinted up at the miserably gray sky. Since she was nocturnal it went against her spidery instincts to stay awake during these hours. However, she was sharing her body with a human, and whatever creature lurked in the darkness was not fond of his species.

 _My species does suck,_ the boy in question piped up.

 **I agree to disagree,** Webber thought as she sleepily got to her feet.

Webber’s hands reached inside of her skin-pockets. However, her hand went a lot deeper into said pockets then what was scientifically possible. But, like many things in the constant, her pockets were a lot larger on the inside than on the outside. She began to pull out various objects from their depths, searching for any food that may be tucked away inside of them. The only food that she could find was a single cooked morsel. It would have to do. She opened up her maw, the soft morning light shown upon her sharp fangs, and she bit down upon her breakfast. She ate her small meal quickly, not bothering to savor the cooked meat’s delicious flavor. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the taste of it, it was more so that she would need to get a move on in order for the human and her to survive.

Upon finishing her meal, without any hesitation, she ran into the woods. With how intent her expression was and how expertly she weaved against the trees one might assume that she knew where she was going, and one would assume incorrectly. The farther she went from the human and her’s base the more food that they could find. Mining the ice deposits surrounding the pengulls produced a few chunks of ice, and harvesting rabbits from grass traps ensured some morsels, but that wasn’t enough to survive on. So, she needed to explore and find more food for them. A small clearing was coming up, and to Webbers delight she could see five unpicked berry bushes surrounding a pond. Not wasting any time, the young arachnid greedily plucked the berries off from the bush and shoved them into her pockets. However, before she could pick the fourth bush, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that a pink line was shooting towards her. With her quick instincts, Webber jumped up. She only got a glimpse of where the tongue had came from, but the sight of a green blur was all that she needed to realize that she was being attacked by a frog. It seemed that the human and her would be dining on amphibian legs today.

She landed on her feet once more, but that didn’t last long. She leapt towards the frog, and before its tongue could retreat back into the safety of its mouth, Webber’s clawed hand grabbed it. The frog croaked in uncomfort, yet Webber didn’t care. With her hand that wasn’t holding its tongue, Webber retrieved a sharp piece of flint from her pocket. Using her hold on its tongue, she flipped it over on its back, exposing its soft stomach. Then, with a completely calm and uncaring expression she began to stab at it. She was careful to do it not-so-quickly, simply because she didn’t want any green frog blood to shoot onto her eyelash-less eyes. The amphibian died pretty quickly, but just in case it was actually still alive and still had the strength to attack her, she sliced off its tongue too. She missed those days when Wendy and her would torture animals. Webber had never enjoyed making another creature suffer, however the act of showing that you were more powerful than your prey was a good feeling; it was a spidery feeling. Sadly, her heart was no longer in the cruel act, it felt wrong to do it when she wasn’t by Wendy’s side. Their long lost friend may have been sad and made morbid comments from time to time, but she was the light of their life, and she was gone. Neither of them would never see her or Abby ever again, and it was all because she couldn’t dodge that stupid rook.

From the back of her mind, she could hear her human half’s shy voice speak. _You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. We both knew that we would soon be separated from them. It was only a matter of time. The evil tall man was making our travels with them a lot more dangerous. There was more hounds and much smaller wait times in between their arrivals. We both anticipated that we only had a few more weeks left with them._

Webber was picking the berries again, but she was doing it considerably slower as she thought back her response to her human side. **I know, it’s just hard not to blame it all on myself…I wonder why he wanted us to be separated from them.**

_Probably to make us suffer more._

**Perhaps he only had us meet them so that he could rip us away from her again?**

_You’re most likely right._

A pause settled between the pair.

_Poor Wendy, she’s lost so many people. Now all she has is Abby, and unfortunately she isn’t even alive ( I don’t know how to rephrase this to make it seem like Webber’s human side isn’t being mean to Abigail, so just pretend that this doesn’t sound the slightest bit rude to Abigail )._

**I miss them so much.**

_I miss them a whole lot too._

Webber found that she had picked all of the berries, so she turned around and ran back home. Her bare feet sent a flurry of snow into the air as she sped past the nearby trees. Eventually, she arrived back home. She was cold, so she threw a log into the small base’s fire pit. It was hard surviving winter when all you had for warmth was a beefalo hat.

 **It’s your turn to be in control now,** she thought to her human half.

_Okay, but can I give you control again when it’s time to kill the rabbits?_

**Of course.**

All the sudden, they switched. With practice it had become easy to switch who was in control of their body, when they had first tried doing it the task was a bit difficult, but they eventually got the hang of it ( this isn’t accurate for people who have multiple personalities. Most people with at least two personalities have a difficult time switching between personalities without some sort of negative or positive trigger. We can say that the two halves of Webber switch easily and quickly because they are stuck in the same body due to shadow magic and unnatural stuff ).

The spider’s confident posture was replaced by a more timid slouch and shy, yet sweet, expression formed on their face. The little boy who was now in charge of their body scooted closer to the fire. The flames were nice and inviting in the coldness of winter. He smiled shyly at the orange whips of light arising from the center of the circle of stones. His imagination ran wild with the sight of the campfire. 

_What if, all of a sudden, this campfire turned into a fire breathing dragon? But, as it turns out, this dragon is a super nice dragon that used their fiery breathe to make all of winter’s snow melt away. Oh, and this dragon would be named…Alex! ‘Cause thats a gender neutral name. And maybe Alex’s dragon scales were made of candy. What if they could shed their candy scales on command and let us eat what they shed? That would be awesome!_

Then, Webber’s shy smile turned into a sad frown. The worst part of fantasizing about things was that you knew they weren’t real and would never actually happen. Despite this, Webber still fantasized like his imagination was a drug. Every moment swirls of happy but unreal things would cloud his mind taking him far away from the wretchedness of reality and his existence.

**How about you go grab some ice? That would be very helpful for you know, survival.**

_Okay, I’ll go do that._

The little boy stood up and jogged towards the direction the pengulls were in. He wasn’t nearly as fast as the spider, nor was he that good at weaving through the trees, so it took him a longer time to get to where he needed to be. There was two penguin breeding grounds but, the closer ones had their mini glaciers mined just yesterday which meant that it would take a few days for any new ice to form. So, he took the long route, and after about three hours of a combination between walking and jogging, he arrived there. Naturally he was now quite cold so his numb hands fumbled around as he managed to set up a nice, warm, campfire. Webber sweetly smiled. The fire was so inviting, it made you just want to stick your hand in it and-

In an attempt to try to distract her head-mate, Webber’s spider half thought **remember, you’re here to mine the ice.**

_Sorry, I was just about to get on that._

**No worries, you don’t have to say sorry.**

_So-I mean-my apologies._

The boy walked towards the small clusters of ice that surrounded snooty pengulls. Luckily most of the mini glaciers were close to the fire he set up so he could get warmer while he mined for the ice.

Not three hits later, his pickaxe suddenly broke. The pieces of flint cracked into tiny shards. The two twigs split apart at the middle. Then they both crumpled into dust and blew away in the distance. If the little boy hadn’t seen this occur hundreds of times already he would’ve said that the sight was both beautiful, and inspiring. Webber sighed in a hopeless manner as he added not-making-sure-his-tool-was-about-to-break-before-mining to his horribly tall pile of insecurities. He had been dragging this massive pile along his whole life, only adding more and more shame to it as the years went by.

Webber’s human side used to be a happy child; but, those times had gone away long before he entered the constant.

After crafting two pickaxes, he continued to mine the ice formations. The hardened water crunched against his flint tool, cracking and breaking apart as they were mined. Webber’s imagination soared once more.

_Wouldn’t it be cool if I was actually mining a ginormous crystal? And, instead of ice coming from each blow, crystals would come out instead. And, we could make wands out of those crystals and we’d become mages. If I was a mage I would put all of the mean people to death. What would you do?_

**Ummm…I don’t know…well, at least I know that I wouldn’t kill people…**

_Oh, I’ve got another idea, and I’m pretty sure that you’ll like this one. If we were a mage we would make the evil tall man tell us where the twins are, we’d teleport over to them, and we’d revive Abby!_

**Okay, yes, if we were a mage that would be, without a doubt, the first thing that we should do.**

_Once we did that, we could teleport back over to him and torture him for all the horrible things that he’s done._

**As long as the twins would be cool with that, I would be cool with that. But, right now you need to finish mining those ice boulders.**

_Okay, I’ve got it._

Webber finished mining the mini glaciers and stored their chunks of ice into their backpack before running back to their base. 

Once he arrived back at said location, he noticed several spiders skittering around. As the spider and him had come to discover, daytime during winter was a lot shorter than normal, and the nighttime was annoyingly long.

Webber walked calmly on the webs surrounding the spider dens. The fur on his bare spider feet were created to not be slowed down by the webbing. However, any creature that wasn’t a fellow spider walked slower on the webs. He recalled those times when Wendy had tried to traverse upon the sticky silk, it was usually quite comical, unless of course they hadn’t given the nearby spiders meat, then it was pretty dangerous.

He threw another log onto the fire as he sat down and warmed himself up. It was times like these when he wished that he was back at grandpa’s house. Back in that small, yet comfy, cottage that always had a fireplace burning in the living room. He wanted to be back there, wrapped in fluffy blankets with grandpa’s cat sitting on his lap while he listened to him tell the same old stories over and over again. He really missed those times, they were one of the few things he missed back on Earth. He missed ice cream too, he really liked that stuff, and he was sure that his spider half would love it too if she ever got the chance to try some.

Webber was whipped out of his thoughts by a warm feeling appearing in his lap. The little boy looked down at the source of the warmth to find a plain black spider that looked up at him expectantly.

During the entirety of winter Webber’s two halves had been loving on several of the spiders in the area, and a few that especially enjoyed being petted tended to join them whenever the spider, or him, sat or laid down. The small child smiled and tentatively began to stroke her fur, but he was careful to only pet her with the pads of his finger and not his fingertips, lest his claws hurt her. The little arachnid in his lap purred and slunk herself into his legs.

Webber hissed at the spider to inform her that she ought not become too comfortable as he would be moving soon. The spider clacked her teeth and said what can be translated as “too late.” Eventually, after about ten minutes of warming up and petting the creature, the small boy decided to get a move on with his day. But, this time, instead of one of them being in control, both of them would be in charge of their body. The two children, the spider and the human, had discovered not too long after being shoved into the same body that their brains were connected enough to not only communicate with one another, but to combine their personalities together in order to run their body at the same time ( so just so ya’ll get it, Webber’s two sides have the ability to mentally combine with one another and split apart at will. Also, this is, once again, not how it works for people who naturally have multiple personalities ).

In mere seconds their personalities combined, their nervous posture became a bit more confident, and a worried and timid expression was replaced by a happy and almost excited one. As they had discovered, mixing an imaginative, yet shy, being with an adventurous and self-assured individual created a personality full of wonder, cheer, and optimism. It was nice feeling like this, it was as though they were more balanced, and in an odd way, more…grounded.

They turned their attention to the arachnid in their lap, their conversation can be translated as such.

“Heyyyyyyyy” the hybrid whispered “wakey wakey no eggs and bakey.”

The spider hissed in annoyance as Webber picked them up a plopped them on the ground.

“At least you can better protect your nest when you’re awake!” They happily hissed.

Their spider friend seemed to perk up a bit at that. Then, off she went, scouting out the area and protecting her home from any sort of threat.

The humanoid spider giggled and stood themself up.

 _ **Alright, we need an axe...Wait where did we put it? Oh yea, our pockets!**_ Webber thought with amusement, _**where else would we put it?**_

The hybrid pulled a makeshift axe out of their pockets. It was new, so hopefully it could bring down a few trees before it broke.

They proceeded to walk up to the closest pine tree and began to wack it down. They recalled how Wendy had always thought how nature was boring. Once they had asked her about that, she had responded saying that animals tended to scream when they died, but nature didn’t. She wanted trees to scream in agony as she chopped them down. She desired for bushes to shriek when set aflame. She craved sounds of agony from flowers as she tore them from the ground and plucked their petals off one by one.

**_It might make her happy if we were to tell her that living logs scream when they're on fire._ **

As soon as the thought entered their mind, Webber shook it away. They would never be able to see either of the twins again. Within the first year of searching for them, the humanoid arachnid had given up all hope for ever being reunited with them again. Now they just travelled through the various islands of the constant simply because they were a lot better at being a nomad than setting up a base. However, as they realized pretty quickly, the island they were currently stuck on was fairly different from all of the other islands they had explored. Webber had a hunch that Maxwell was no longer in control. On their previous island, instead of the evil tall man’s head popping out of the island’s Teleportato, there was the head of a woman. Not only this, but upon their arrival into this isle they weren’t greeted by the typical boring speech about how it was so annoying to have to send them to an island every few days. No, they were greeted by a beautiful, yet creepy, structure called a Florid Postern. It was the sort of thing that Wendy would’ve liked, she tended to gravitate towards scary, sanity-dropping, things. For example, Wendy much preferred evil flowers over regular flowers, which was obviously concerning, but then again it was hard to not be concerned for Wendy. Anyways, Webber had also come to discover that their island didn’t seem to have any pieces of the Teleportato. Taking everything into consideration, it seemed that they were supposed to stay on this strange island, and although they were used to not doing what the ruler of the constant wanted them to do, the hybrid was afraid of what might happen if they were to die on this island. As they had come to learn during their time in this world, the unknown is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs, and because of this, they determined that they would be staying on this world until they met a natural end.

After a few hours of chopping down a considerable amount of trees, digging up some stumps, and taking a snack break, Webber had cleared a somewhat large portion of the forest. However, despite the hefty amount of logs, Webber knew that they would run out of them in only a few days. 

Just as they were crafting yet another axe, they noticed some odd colors out odd the corner of one of their eyes. Webber tilted their head up to get a better view of the things that were situated quite a distance away from them. On first glance, the hybrid could see red, blacks, whites and yellows that stood out quite easily against the green and white pine trees. However, upon giving it more than a glance, they could make out three separate and distinct objects. The one on the leftmost side was taller than the other two objects and it appeared to mostly have a charcoal color, but it had a bit of red coloring as well. The one in the middle was significantly shorter, it was almost entirely a snowy white color that almost made it seem as though it was glowing. The one on rightmost side was only a bit shorter than the one in the middle and consisted of the colors yellow, white, and red.

**_Wait a minute, where have we seen those colors before?_ **

They were moving in the direction to the left of Webber, but suddenly the one on the leftmost side, the shortest one, stopped moving. The hybrid squinted their eyes and moved a bit closer to the things that were a fair bit far from them.

**_It kinda looks more humanoid than object-like._ **

Whatever they were, they moved closer to Webber as well.

**_They must see us, and they seem to be trying to get a better look at us too._ **

Suddenly, they realized who this humanoid figure was.

They accidentally dropped their half-made axe to the ground in shock.

The little girl began to run towards them.

For a couple of moments, Webber couldn’t move in surprise, but soon they found that their legs could work again.

The little hybrid began to run towards her too.

( Please read the End Notes section ).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so sure that this next update would be Webber's character refresh. I was so wrong. Also, next month Klei seems to be releasing Wigfrid. 
> 
> Thanks Klei ( sarcasm ).
> 
> So I started my first day of high school on Monday ( yea, I'm young ). Due to me doing some writing while I waited for Klei to do Webber's character refresh, a whole bunch of chapters will be coming out soon. However, after that chapters will be a lot slower 'cause, ya know, I've got school. Also, because this is going to be a Webber/Wendy fanfic I just want you folks to understand that they are best friends before crushes. This means that they would care about each other almost just as much as they currently do in this fanfic if they didn't have feelings for one another. And, I realized that some people may be uncomfortable about the idea of both sides of Webber having a crush on Wendy, however this is actually pretty normal, let me explain. So, people with more than one personality often go into relationships with other people where multiple of their fellow personalities are dating that same person. This will be further explained when I eventually drag Wigfrid into this fanfic, and I'm giving her OSSD-1b 'cause I want some representation.


	15. Chapter 15 - Reunited - Day 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first half of this is somewhat important for you to read. However, once you reach the time skip you can skip the rest of this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter than normal chapter; however, the next one is longer than usual. Also, now this fanfic has been tagged as Webber/Wendy. So, if the supporters of this ship are desperate enough, they’re gonna have to read a ton of chapters.
> 
> Nope, this time the culprit of the wait wasn’t the Sims 4 or Don’t Starve Together, it was schoolwork.
> 
> By the way, I stumbled upon a Russian Don’t Starve Fan-fiction place. In my small amount of free time I’ve been reading some of the fics there ( with the help of online translators. I don’t know Russian ). The last one I read ended on a very dark note, but wow that author had skill.

It felt like minutes went by instead of seconds; it just seemed like everything was going by far too slowly. But, with every step that Wendy took she grew closer to them than she had for years. She could feel tears running down her face again, but these were happy tears. Finally, after years of fruitless searching she had finally found them, and luckily, they were alive. Within a couple more seconds, or minutes from their perspectives, the children crashed into one another like two opposite magnets, and hugged. 

Then, they began to laugh.

After years of missing each other and wishing so desperately that they could be reunited, they had finally found one another and the worry, regret, and tension in their hearts broke. For just a few moments it felt like everything was perfect.

“Wait, where’s Abby?” Webber suddenly asked.

They broke from their hug and dragged the approaching Abigail into their best-friend embrace.

But, after a while, they broke from their hug a second time.

Webber was all smiley and giddy and they were jumping a bit in excitement. Abigail’s eyes had the same sparkle and delight in them that she used to have back when she was still alive. Wendy was beaming at Webber. It had been such a long time since she smiled so widely…it hurt her face.

“We’ve never seen you have such a big smile before!” Webber exclaimed with an amazed grin. Then, they turned their head to Abigail “oh, and Abby! Theres a crafting recipe here called the tell-tale-heart and it lets you revive ghosts!”

A look of despair fell onto the twins happy expressions, wiping Wendy’s abnormal smile off her face in the process.

Upon the sibling’s mood changing so abruptly, Webber’s face fell into one of fear. They could feel themselves almost being torn in two again.

“W-we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to upset you two” the little hybrid immediately apologized

Wendy, having noticed their typical social distress, grabbed their right hand in her left hand.

“Its alright. Don’t worry, it isn’t your faults” Wendy said comfortingly “the two of us discovered that it doesn’t actually work, it’s just a cruel prank.”

 _Come to think about it, that horrid trick must’ve not been from Maxwell. It must’ve actually come from the constant’s new ruler,_ Wendy thought. _I officially despise her._

Webber relaxed a bit at that, but they still looked somewhat nervous. So, Wendy hugged them again and stated “Abby and I missed the two of you so much.”

“Oooh oOOoOoh!” Abigail said in agreement.

The hybrid perked up at that “We missed your two so much too!”

“Webber, I have a proposal for you” Wendy announced as she pulled away from her best friend. Would you be okay with staying at my base until one of us inevitably perishes and we must repeat this cycle of endless searching once more?”

“We would love that!” Then, they added “we mean we love the idea of staying at your base. But, we are averse to, ya know, having somebody perish because that would suck.

“Yes, I gathered that” Wendy replied, slightly amused. “I just need to ask Willow for permission.”

“W-willow?” Webber asked in fear, the hissiness of their voice was entirely replaced by a British accent.

 _Uh oh,_ both of the twins thought.

Before Webber could say anything else, Wendy grabbed their hand “it’s alright, Willow is a nice human.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” He asked, backing away a little bit. However, he tightened his grip on Wendy’s hand.

“Just trust me when I say that she’s not bad. If she does turn out to be mean and unprogressive, we can just murder her.” Wendy said that last part far too casually for most people’s comfort.

Webber nodded in agreement, but he still looked a bit unsure.

Wendy bit her lip “I promise you that she’s nice.”

“And that she supports equality?”

Wendy nodded “and that she supports equality.”

The little girl held her pinky finger out. The little boy intertwined his pinky finger with hers. It was a pinky promise.

Wendy casually slipped her hand into his and the best friends walked over to Willow.

What do you think Willow would’ve done if she had seen Webber, a hybrid between a human and a spider, for the first time? Whatever you think she would’ve done really isn’t that far from what she was currently doing.

Willow was barely keeping herself together. In front of her was a scary and very odd sight. Talking to Wendy in a hissy, yet British accent was a fluffy, black, humanoid figure that had spots of white eyes symmetrically dotting its face. From out of each side of its head shot two spidery limbs that resembled arms-if said arms were hand-less and covered in a thin layer of matted spider fur, that is. Unfortunately for the creature, one of these limbs was half torn off, however it looked like the wound had been well treated. Large white fangs could be seen as it talked. Despite the fact that from a lack of use their fangs were duller than most spider’s fangs, they were still certainly sharp enough to kill somebody if they were defenseless. Along the messy and uneven fur of the creature’s body was tatters of webs that looked to be used as bandages for the creature ( Webber’s survivor skin ).

Willow had to remind herself that it was Wendy’s and Abigail’s very good friend, and it was clearly intelligent enough to talk.

After having a small conversation with one another, the small group of friends were coming towards Willow. 

“Umm, hey W-Webber” Willow said with a forced and nervous smile as she held out her hand for the child to shake.

 _D*ng it Wilson,_ Willow thought in annoyance, _you’re rubbing off your social awkwardness on me._

“Hi, Ms.Willow.” Webber shook fearfully as he said those words. His voice was hard to hear and he was having a difficult time breathing. The very nervous child griped Wendy’s hand tightly.

Wendy scooted closer to Webber and slung her arm over their shoulders to provide him with more comfort. This was an action that the human greatly appreciated.

Wendy noted that it seemed as though his anthrophobia had gotten worse during the years that they had been apart. Unfortunately for her friends whenever one of them was experiencing strong emotions it was hard to switch places with one another.

“Willow” Wendy piped up “due to an accident involving suffocation and death, Maxwell” she turned to Webber “also known as the evil tall man” she looked back at Willow “got the idea to magically combine a young spider girl with a little human boy. These two wonderful beings share the same body, and can both alternate control over their body, or they can combine their personalities to run it. Currently, their human side is in control.”

Webber lightly, yet nervously, smiled. The twins always had a knack for knowing which one of them was in control.

“Just to make sure, neither of you are dangerous, right?” Willow asked.

Webber shook his head “not unless we’re insane” ( it should be noted that very rarely are people with multiple personalities physically dangerous, people with only one personality are actually more likely to be unsafe to be around. Don’t believe what the horror movies might want to tell you about the 1.5% of the population with more than one personality, there is no such thing as an ‘evil’ personality. Now back to the chapter! ).

Willow sighed in relief “okay, thats good to hear.” The young woman paused before asking “May I have a word alone with the twins?”  
The little boy nodded, and walked far enough away that he couldn’t hear their conversation. He was fairly worried as to why they weren’t to be included in the conversation. He determined that it was most likely because they were talking about the spider and/or him. The child came to an incorrect conclusion.

_Willow probably hates us._

**No, I doubt thats the case.**

_Sorry, you’re right. She probably only hates me._

**She most likely doesn’t hate either of us.**

Meanwhile, Willow asked the twins “we’re taking them in, right?”

“Yes, we were hoping for that” Wendy confirmed.

“Okay, good, because that kid, or those kids, or whatever you’d call them, don’t look to be doing so well” Willow noted “besides their beefalo hat they’re naked. Your friends or friend is probably really cold.” Then, Willow asked “what do I refer to them as? Do I constantly use plurals or should I use singulars? And, does that change based off of who’s in control?”

Wendy replied “they’re okay with whatever you refer to them as just as long as you don’t call the human a she and the spider a he. I suggest you just stick with calling them a they until you can determine who’s in control.”

Willow nodded, then she suddenly turned towards the children in question. “Hey, Webber!” The young woman called, prompting the hybrid to turn their head in her direction. “Do you wanna grab some stuff from your base and head to ours?

Webber shook their head “we’ve already got everything we need in here” the child pointed towards their backpack

Willow looked up to the constant’s sun. She had to squint due to its strong glare. The yellow star had made its way over about 7/8ths of the sky, and much to almost every member of the constants displeasure, there wasn’t a sunset. 

“We won’t make it back to camp today, but we’ll probably get there by tomorrow” Willow murmured. She turned her head back towards the children “How about we all get an early bedtime?”

They all nodded in agreement.

“Okay, cool” Willow stated as she dug in her pockets for some of the meals that Wendy had supplied her with. She handed two to Wendy who gave Webber one of her plates, and the arsonist kept a plate for herself.

Willow set her plate down and began to set up a campfire.

Webber gently taped Wendy on the shoulder with one of their spidery limbs and whispered “where did you get this from?”

Wendy pointed to the turkey dinner in their claws “thats from a magical thing called a crock pot. You shove weird foods into it and it somehow makes entirely different meals out of them.”

Webber sweetly smiled “whatever this is made of, it smells delicious.”

“Indeed” Wendy replied.

After the campfire had been set up, the group had eaten a nice meal, and Willow had collected and killed the rabbits stuck in Webber’s traps, they were all ready to get some shut eye.

None of them had any straw rolls, nor did they have enough grass that they were willing to spare to make more makeshift sleeping bags, so they all rested on the cold snow. 

Like usual, Willow and her lovable bear pal, Bernie, chose to sleep right next to the flames. Wendy was confident that her nightmare wouldn’t persist, after all, Abby and her had been reunited with Webber. So, the little girl designated her sleeping spot to be close to the campfire too, but not as close to it as Willow was. Then, Wendy motioned for Webber to come sleep next to her. When Wendy, Webber, and Abigail used to travel together the two corporeal children would sleep right beside one another. Doing so provided a sense of comfort, and the kids liked to quietly converse with one another before they drifted off to sleep. So, Webber accepted her request and joined the twins by laying down parallel to Wendy.

“I’m a bit worried that if I go to sleep, when I wake up, this will all be just a dream” Wendy quietly admitted.

“Yeah” Webber whispered with a hissy grin. “But you can trust us, we aren’t a dream…Actually, thats exactly what somebody in a dream would say. Maybe you shouldn’t trust us…” Webber quietly said as they began to worry about their own existence.

“I’m pretty sure that I’m not actually dreaming” Wendy whispered with a slight smile, but this smile disappeared when she remarked on the temperature. “It is unfortunate that we don’t have straw rolls, sleeping on snow is uncomfortably cold.”

Webber proceeded to take their beefalo hat off of their head and gave it to Wendy

“Wait, no, I don’t need-you need this” Wendy quietly said as she plopped the headwear back onto Webber’s head.

Abigail, who was floating above them giggled in her ghostly voice.

Wendy’s frown deepened as she realized that sleeping on the snow was probably way worse for her technically naked best friend.

The little girl took her thermal stone out of her pocket and sat up to shrug her puffy vest off of her shoulders.

Webber sat up too, concern shown in their eyes. “You need to keep that on. You’ll fre-“

“Worry not, just lay back down.”

With a mix between hesitance and worry on their face, the hybrid reluctantly reclined back into the soft, yet cold snow beneath them.

Then, Wendy laid back again into her own straw roll, but this time she scooted closer to Webber. Her best friend could feel a small bit of warmth on their cheeks.

Wendy moved her thermal stone to sit in between the two of them and moved both her own hand and webber’s hand onto the stone. A pleasantly warm feeling from the smooth rock suddenly raced and tingled through the children’s bodies. Wendy proceeded to lay her puffy vest over the two of them as if it were a blanket.

“Are you warmer now?” Wendy quietly asked.

“Yeah” Webber whispered with a grin “much warmer”

“Good” Wendy softly responded. “Lets go to sleep now, okay?”

“‘Kay” the hybrid quietly responded. “Nighty night Abby.”

“ooOooOOh.”

The young children closed their eyes.

Five minutes passed by before a very soft and whispery voice asked “Wendy, we can’t sleep…and your breathing notes that you can’t either.”

The little girl opened her eyes. They were right, she just didn’t feel tired.

“We’re too excited to sleep” Webber quietly stated.

After a pause of thought Wendy whispered “so am I”

Abigail softly said “OoooOoh oh Oh.”

The little ghost’s best friend’s looked up at her. She had successfully managed to get their attention. So, the specter floated over to Webber’s back pack.

“Do you want us to look through it?” The hybrid quietly asked.

Abigail nodded.

Webber crawled over to the portable storage and opened it up to reveal various different supplies.

With the tip of Abigail’s ghostly form she pointed at an item made of reeds.

Webber gasped and excitedly whispered “Abby, you’re a genius!”

Abigail confidently nodded in agreement.

The hybrid plucked the pan flute out of their back pack and scooted back over to Wendy.

“Can you please ask Ms.Willow to use the pan flute?” Webber softly asked.

Wendy nodded and took the sleep inducing instrument. Then she walked over to the sleeping Willow and nudged her shoulder.

“Mmm” Willow grumbled.

“Webber and I need your assistance. We are unable to fall into a temporary death. Can you please play this pan flute for us?” Wendy asked as she held out the tool in question to Willow.

“Yeah” the young woman replied as she took the magic item from the little girl’s hands.

The pair then walked over to the kid’s sleeping spot. Wendy got herself into a comfortable position. And, Willow played a soft tune from the pan flute.

In mere moments the magical melody lulled Wendy and Webber into a deep slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be posted maybe a week or two from now. I don’t really know when to be honest. It depends on how much schoolwork I have and how much I have to edit this next chapter.
> 
> I have something odd to bring up. So about a week ago I looked at the kudos from the recent Webber/Wendy stories and I’ve compared it to the people who have put kudos on this fan-fic. I see four people in common. However, currently there's eight subscribers to this story ( thank you so much for the subscriptions by the way! ). That means that there’s at least four people reading this fanfiction who don’t support Wenber and Webny ( I’m totally cool with this by the way ). So, that leads me to three conclusions. 1. Some of my subscribers read this because they love gore, murder, and torture. 2. Some of my subscribers read this because they like lighthearted family fluff where Wilson and Willow aren’t in love with one another. Or, 3. Some of my subscribers read this because they like reading about Wendy. Whatever the reason you’re reading this for, and whether you’re a guest or not, thank you so much for reading this terrible fic!
> 
> Bye-bye, have a wonderful day, and thanks for all the fish ( book reference )!


	16. Chapter 16 - The Last Nightmare - The Night Of Day 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't really that important, and its probably a bore for you to read. You can skip it if you want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that this is the longest chapter I've posted yet.

The first thing that she heard was horribly familiar sound of barking hounds.

Wendy immediately thought in annoyance, bloody he-

_Wait a second…_

_Where am I?_

_I’m looking at a birch wood forest, and it seems similar to what I usually see, but at the same time its…different._

“That’s not good” Webber said. Oddly enough their voice sounded far away, barely audible against the sounds of the baying beasts.

With a hunch, Wendy tried to move by shaking her arm.

It worked, she wasn’t constrained in the slightest.

She looked down at herself. She wasn’t dressed in the regular attire she wore in this dream. Instead she retained her appearance from when she had fallen asleep. Wendy’s dirty hands trailed up to her hair. To her disappointment, she was still pigtail-less. It wasn’t as though Wendy had ever regretted cutting off her locks, her hair was much easier to manage when it was shorter. However, Wendy was a feminine little girl and she quite liked having pig tails. Blood always did look better when it stood out on her previously long blonde hair. 

“Hopefully the evil tall man is only sending two of them” her friend nervously said. They still sounded unusually far away, she had to strain her ears to hear them.

With Wendy’s own will, she easily turned herself around.

“Stop worrying, we’ll be fine” a familiar little girl a few yards away from her assertively replied.

Wendy Immediately recognized the child to be herself.

For whatever the reason she wasn’t experiencing her dream from the perspective that she normally experienced it. Instead she was watching the scene from a few feet away. This different position on the battle field was what had made the birch nut forest seem different, yet familiar, at the same time.

Behind her spear-wielding doppelgänger was a birchnut tree. In-between Wendy and white-barked tree sat a bruised and broken-boned Webber. The monsterish humanoid looked quite worried.

Wendy walked towards the other Wendy.

“Wendy” Webber whimpered “we’re in a really bad situation.”

“No we’re not” the duplicate Wendy countered “its not as if I haven’t protected you from hound attacks before.”

Wendy frowned, this was the usual conversation they had in her dream, but why wasn’t she included in it? 

An idea popped into the little girl’s head. Perhaps she was meant to prevent Webber from dying, Maybe she was here to help herself fight or at least warn everybody about the life that would soon be taken.

“No, listen to them” the older Wendy suddenly said “we are in a horrible situation.”

Neither herself or her dear friend showed any signs of hearing her.

“Yea, but we don’t have any medical equipment left” Webber stated.

“I have some” Wendy replied as she searched through her pockets, but instead of pulling out anything, all she saw and felt was emptiness. 

For one of the few times in Wendy’s life, she had absolutely nothing in her pockets, not even Abigail’s flower.

“N-Nevermind” Wendy softly said in both surprise and a hint of fear.

“Somebody could die” Webber commented, desperately urging them to feel the same fear that they felt.

“Yes!” Wendy exclaimed “exactly! You die!”

The other Wendy ignored her and stepped backwards. She gently put a comforting hand on Webber’s fluffy black shoulder. Then, the little girl stared directly into Webber’s eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep us safe.”

“No! Don’t you understand?!” Wendy nearly screamed as she walked over to stand directly in front of herself.

She grabbed her younger self’s small shoulders and yelled “They die!”

Neither herself nor her friend seemed to have heard her.

“Please listen to me!” Wendy screamed as she shook the other Wendy’s bony shoulders.

Her hands passed right through her other self’s shoulders, it was as if she was a ghost.

She stepped back and looked at her dirty, bloody, and blistered, hands.

All anger disappeared from Wendy’s face, leaving her with an expression of pure desperation.

“Maybe you can’t listen to me…”

The small child reached her hand through her other self’s stomach, and just as she had feared, her hand went through the other side of her scrawny body with ease. It really was like she was a ghost.

It was like she wasn’t actually there.

 _Oh, of course,_ Wendy thought to herself in a mix between anger and annoyance, _I’m just supposed to watch and not interact. I’m never supposed to save them. They always need to die._

Suddenly, Webber broke Wendy out from her thoughts by yelling “on your left!”

Wendy watched as the other Wendy charged to her left towards a charcoal black hound that was running full speed at her.

_My hands will probably just go through it, but I have to try…just in case I’m wrong._

Wendy ran after herself and towards the first hound.

The other Wendy dodged the hound’s incoming attack before rushing to its side and shoving her spear into the beast. The dangerous animal growled at her and tried to look at, and bite, the small child.

Wendy speedily crouched down right next to the hound and attempted to pull its jaws away from the other Wendy wielding the spear. Unfortunately, her prediction was correct, her hands just slid through its head.

Wendy sadly sighed and stood up. Just as she had feared, she wasn’t able to help herself kill the hounds. So, whilst keeping her eyes on the bloody scene before her, Wendy backed away towards Webber, and proceeded to sit next to them.

Her friend sat there nervously, their eyes were focused on the other Wendy. Every time that the hound got close to harming her, Webber would flinch and tense up.

The other little girl successfully killed the hound that she was attacking and ran for the second one.

Wendy and Webber sat next to the tree and watched in silence as Abigail and the other Wendy killed the second hound.

Then, the twins moved onto the third fiend. As anticipated, Abigail died. However, the other Wendy survived, in fact she hadn’t gotten injured in the fight so far.

Wendy and Webber’s eyes locked onto the fourth hound. It was running at full speed in their direction.

It was strange seeing the hound from this point of view, she never had looked at it straight on like this. Granted, the entire scene felt odd to Wendy. It was weird to just sit back and relax while the hounds that she would normally be killing got murdered by her duplicate.

The fourth hound was getting closer and closer to them.

Wendy sat there calmly, she knew what would happen and although she hated what would soon occur, she was somewhat mentally prepared for it.

On the other hand, Webber was racked with fear. They didn’t take their eight eyes off of the approaching hound as they backed up into the birch nut tree they were sitting up against.

The other Wendy was desperately running towards the fourth hound.

 _It’s no use, you won’t make it,_ Wendy sorrowfully thought. _But please, try anyways._

“WENDY!” Webber suddenly screamed.

The fourth hound opened its maw up to a towering height. The hybrid made a futile attempt to scoot away from their attacker, causing some of their body to go through Wendy’s legs. The little girl could see their pained expression up close. They were using their two broken legs to scoot away from the hound, naturally, this was very painful for the child. The beast proceeded to lock its jaws down onto one of her friend’s injured legs. Webber screamed in pure agony. The expression on their face was heart-wrenching. The hound dragged Wendy’s friend, and its victim, towards itself until it stood directly over Wendy’s shrieking, and struggling, best friend.

The monster opened up its jaws, which were lined in a row of knife-like teeth, and tore into its preys stomach, gruesomely separating their flesh from their body.

“WEBBER!” The other Wendy screamed, she still wasn’t close enough to her companion to help them.

The hound paid her no mind as it cruelly tore at Webber’s insides. The hybrid tried to shove their onslaughter off of them, but Wendy knew that this action was a vain attempt at trying to stop the pain, it always was.

The other Wendy finally arrived at the scene and she speedily plunged her weapon into the best’s throat. The monster turned its attention to the other little girl and they began their battle to the death. 

You can bet your bottom dollar that the other Wendy won this fight.

However, Instead of focusing her attention on her other self, Wendy looked down at Webber.

The little hybrid was trying to cover up their wound with grass from their pockets. But the longer they did this, the more hopeless their pained expression became.

Her best friend was beginning to realize that it didn’t matter how much grass they had, they would die from blood loss.

The other Wendy had finished slaughtering the hound and raced to Webber’s side. She wasted no time and speedily grabbed the grass from her pockets and began to aid Webber in trying to stop the bleeding.

There was so much blood.

After almost a half a minute of trying to stop the purplish crimson from flowing, Webber said “We don’t think that we can stop the bleeding.”

The other Wendy ignored them and continued to try to stop the hybrid from bleeding out.

“Wendy” Webber’s bloody hand gently grabbed Wendy’s bloody hand “we’re going to die.”

In an almost violent manner, the other Wendy shook her head, then she shoved Webber hand away “no you’re not.”

Wendy nearly gasped at the scene before her, she was watching what seemed to be a sort of replay of what happened that horrible day. It was what actually occurred. This was them when they were younger. Not to say that they had aged, because they hadn’t, but this was the exact scene that had happened years ago.

“We should say our goodbyes” Webber stated.

“We won’t have to because you’re going to survive” Wendy argued.

“Okay, then we’ll say our goodbyes” the hybrid said “Wendy, we are so glad that we met you and Abby, we used to hate humans, well, one of us still kinda does…but you, a human, are so…amazing. All of the other human children, they’re jerks, they only see life on a surface level and they hate everyone thats different from them. But you don’t do that, you’re so deep and smart and progressive and you have never been afraid to think about the meaning behind everything, whether that meaning is riddled with sadness or not. And, you aren’t afraid of who you are, we’ve never seen you wipe away or try to hold back your tears, you’re so brave. You don’t care that we’re total weirdos, you don’t care that we look horrifying or that we don’t fit in, you and Abby are the only other children that our human side has met who hasn’t outcasted, or talked negatively to, him. We don’t get why, but you’re so different and special. We love that about you, thats why you’re such an amazing friend, and we won’t ever forget you. We friendlily love you so much, and we’ll miss you and Abby eternally and forever and we’ll try our hardest to get back to the two of you, because you’re the bestest best friends that anybody could ask for.”

“No” the younger Wendy said as tears ran down her face “you won’t have to look for us because you’re not going to die…I’m not going to loose you too.”

“Wendy, please say your goodbyes. Don’t do it for us, do it for yourself. We know you well enough to know that you’re going to regret all of this.”

_You were so right, Webber. I do regret all of this._

“No!” The younger Wendy half shrieked half sobbed. She was still diligently trying to stop the bleeding, and she was failing miserably.

“We both know that this was going to happen eventually. The evil tall man was getting desperate to split us apart, this was inevitable.”

“No” the younger Wendy said, her voice was weaker and quieter this time “don’t leave Abby and I alone.”

“Goodbye, Wendy.”

“Please don’t go” the younger Wendy softly pleaded in-between tears.

Webber spoke no longer, their eight eyes were weakly shut. They were unconscious.

The younger Wendy continued to sob, but she didn’t let her tears stop her from wasting her grass to try and stop Webber from bleeding out.

But in less than a minute, Webber suddenly poofed into a skeleton. All of the contents in their pockets poured onto the floor, some of which went through the older Wendy’s feet.

Speaking of which, the older Wendy was watching the scene silently as clear, glassy, tears rolled down her cheeks.

“NO!” The younger Wendy screamed as she pounded her fists angrily against the floor.

It wasn’t as if the younger Wendy hadn’t seen Webber die before, it was just that this time she knew that neither of them had a life giving amulet with them, and they hadn’t found a touch stone on their island, which may or may not have been because of Maxwell’s interference.

The younger Wendy looked up to the sky and screamed “BRING THEM BACK! PLEASE!”

Maxwell gave no sign that he had heard her.

The younger Wendy cried and buried her eyes in the bloody palms of her hands. The older Wendy watched as her younger self scooted herself against the nearby, and now slightly bloody, birch nut tree. The older Wendy heard muffled crying sounds come from her younger self. It was pathetic, but it was genuine. Webber was right, she never was afraid to bawl her eyes out.

The younger Wendy weakly grabbed Abigail’s flower out from her pocket and softly whispered to it. A familiar ghostly figure rose from out of the ground.

As soon as Abigail saw her sister heavily crying she knew that something was very wrong.

The younger Wendy weakly lifted up her arm and pointed to Webber’s skeleton.

The little ghost floated backwards a little bit in shock, and for perhaps a minute she didn’t take her eyes off of her best friend’s remains. Ghosts couldn’t cry, but Wendy knew that if she had the ability to do so she would be in tears.

Soon, the older Wendy realized that her dream was beginning to become faded and blurry. She must’ve been waking up.

_Please let this be the last time I will have to endure this nightmare._

However, instead of Wendy finding herself opening her eyes to the Constant’s dreary morning sky, Wendy found herself back at the start of her dream, but this time she was in her regular position and she was unable to control her body.

Hounds bayed loudly in the distance.

_Nope, I jinxed myself._

“Thats not good” their hoarse, yet sweet, voice said.

Wendy felt her dirty hands push herself off of the grassy forest floor.

“Hopefully the evil tall man is only sending two of them” Webber nervously said.

“Stop worrying, we’ll be fine” Wendy confidently responded.

“Wendy” Webber worriedly hissed “we’re in a really bad situation.”

“No we’re not” Wendy replied “it’s not as if I haven’t protected you from hound attacks before.”

_In a way this all feels like foreshadowing._

“Yea, but we don’t have any medical equipment left” the young hybrid stated.

For a few moments, nobody spoke, then Webber broke the silence by saying “somebody could die.”

Wendy stepped backwards and put a comforting hand on Webber’s charcoal black shoulder. Webber looked up at her, their pure white eyes met her light blue eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep us safe” Wendy said.

Webber looked so sweet, so innocent, and still…so worried.

“We’ll get through this just like we’ve gotten through every other hardship we’ve been faced with.”

The hybrid’s expression didn’t change, they still looked very nervous.

The little girl removed her hand from their shoulder and placed it atop their fluffy black head. She proceeded to gently push her hand through their fur in a stroking motion. Webber purred at the sensation, they really liked getting their head petted. According to them it was a gesture of trust and friendship for spiders. In other words it was like petting a dog or a cat.

“If it makes you feel any better, I can call forth Abby” Wendy calmly offered, her expression still appearing emotionless.

Webber eagerly nodded whilst they gently leaned into Wendy’s scratches on the top of their head.

With Wendy’s other hand, she pulled out a light pink flower from one of her pockets. She lifted her other hand off of her friend’s head and brought both of her hands to the bottom of the magical flower.

She carefully lifted the pink blossom to her mouth and whispered “we know that you’re tired, but we can’t do this alone.”

Wendy gently tossed the closed-up flower into the air, and in only a couple of seconds the blossom’s light pink shade fadded into a familiar red color, and its soft, dainty, petals ripped themselves apart from one another. These petals then rose into the air, just like how a nearby ghost rose from the ground. Suddenly, they swooped back down towards the little girl’s palms, forming the powerful flower once more.

Wendy turned her head to see a little ghost with a red flower on the right side of her whispy cranium. 

Upon hearing the sounds of barking hounds, Abigail said “OoooOh!”

Webber spoke in an apologetic tone “hey Abby, sorry for waking you up, but as you can see, or rather, hear, we need all the help we can get.”

Abigail nodded in understanding and elegantly floated to stand above her injured best friend so that she may guard them better.

Wendy very lightly smiled at Webber, and patted the top of their head “we’ll be okay.”

Webber’s eyes looked away from Abigail and back to Wendy. They still looked quite worried, and with hesitance, they asked their best friend “promise?”

Wendy assuredly said “promise.”

_I wonder how many times I’ve broken that promise._

Although they were still visibly nervous, Webber smiled, and being careful not to hurt themselves, they reached for, and quickly hugged, Wendy’s leg.

Wendy slightly smiled before returning to her previous position in front of her friend with her back to their birch nut tree so that she could continue to scan the horizon for the beasts that were soon to come.

Suddenly, Webber yelled “on your left!”

With those words, Wendy gained full control over her body and she ran at the quickly approaching hound. 

She didn’t stop running as the beast opened up its large mouth.

Instead, she sprinted into its maw as fast as she could, narrowly avoiding the teeth sharp hound teeth as the monsters jaw slammed shut.

Everything went black.

But that wasn’t because Wendy had gone unconscious, ‘cause she hadn’t. It was simply because there isn’t any light inside of hounds.

If you were to stand behind the hound that had just swallowed Wendy whole, you would see a small bump rising from its upper back and then disappearing. A second later, there was another, larger bump. Then, after another second, there was a third larger and pointier pump. This bump appeared for a fourth time, it was larger, pointier, and steeper than the last. A fifth steep-hilled bump appeared, it was accompanied by a small tearing sound. The sixth bump in the hound’s upper back rose and with it came a large tearing sound before disappearing once again. The seventh bump tore the hound’s flesh immensely and gave way to a pointy, bloody, spear which left a bloody hole in the hound’s upper backside.

A small head with purplish blondish hair partly peaked out of the hole. Then, a small, scrawny, blood-covered, ten-year-old, crawled out of this opening in the beast’s flesh. Her small body was covered in purple blood and torn off hound organs, but the little girl didn’t mind that, she actually quite enjoyed the gore. She proceeded to run at the next hound, leaving a somewhat hollow corpse behind her.

This second hound was already attacking Abigail, Wendy knew from experience that it would be wise to aid her sibling in her mini battle.

The little girl decided to use an attack method on this hound that she had only used a couple of times. She ran up to the beast and without any sort of hesitation, the little girl jabbed her spear into the flesh right above its shoulder. Naturally, the monster staggered away from the sudden force which is something it might’ve regretted as Wendy used this to its disadvantage. Using the spear that was inserted right above its shoulder blade, Wendy knocked the hound onto its back and she moved to sit upon its softly furred stomach. The beast clawed at the child as she roughly pulled her weapon out of it and proceeded to insert it into the monster’s chest. She then repeated this stabbing motion several times

Abigail had moved onto the third hound, and when Wendy was positive that her hound was dead, she came over to help her sibling. However, before she could push her spear into any areas of its flesh, the beast leapt at her; it’s jaws were impossibly tall. Wendy attempted to dodge the unexpected attack, but unfortunately for her, she didn’t entirely succeed, and the monster imbedded its teeth harshly into the flesh just above her elbow. The little girl yelped in pain, and with the fighting instinct that she had developed in her many years trapped in the constant, Wendy stabbed her weapon into the skin below its jaw. The hound still didn’t let go of her arm so she pushed her spear even farther into its flesh. The beast opened its jaws at that which allowed Wendy to slide her shoulder out of it’s mouth. Despite this, the monster’s small attacker didn’t remove her weapon from out of the underside of its jaw, instead she kept pushing until the tip of her spear emerged from the top of its head. She had made a brain kabob.

_Now, onto the last hound._

The fourth hound was running full speed at Webber. The beat’s eyes were menacing, cruel, and very determined to rip the hybrid’s flesh from their stomach.

Even though Wendy knew that her efforts would be in vain, she ran as fast as she could to her best friend.

Tears were welling up in the little girl’s eyes. She knew what would come, and she dreaded it.

The hound was almost at Webber. Three feet away, two feet away, one fo-

“WENDY!” The hybrid screamed.

The beast speedily opened up its large jaws. The small child attempted to scoot away from the monster, wincing as they did so.

Then, Wendy’s spear violently plowed into the hound’s side.

Wendy kept quickly and violently stabbing the beast and Abigail kept making ghostly slashes at it until Webber noted “that hound is definitely dead.”

The twins turned towards them, the hybrid was smiling in amusement.

Wendy was smiling quite widely too, but hers was a smile of triumph, amazement, and a little bit of disbelief “yes, it is.”

“C’mon and sit next to us, Wendy. We need to patch up you elbow, it looks pretty bloody” Webber said as they patted a spot on the ground right next to them with their clawed hand.

The little girl did just that, she plopped herself down right beside them.

“So, why are you all smiley and stuff?” Webber asked, as they pushed her puffy sleeve up and began to weave grass around the flesh near her elbow. “We’ve never seen you have such a big smile before.”

These were the words that Webber had said not long before Wendy went to sleep. Which made sense, in Wendy’s dream Webber said exactly what Wendy expected them to say.

“Not that we’re complaining” Webber added as they looked up at her with a sweet and genuine expression “you have a pretty smile.”

Wendy lightly blushed as she thought _now why did I expect them to say that?_

“Well” Wendy said “Its-um uhhh its…something that I’ll tell you later.”

Webber cheerfully responded with “Okey dokey!”

“Nevertheless” Wendy noted “I’m elated that you weren’t slaughtered by hounds.”

Abigail nodded in agreement.

“Yea” Webber giggled “that would’ve sucked. Oh, and by the way” Webber looked at both of their best friends, a task that wasn’t all that challenging due to them having eight eyes “you two were awesome! The whole thing was very gory, but you demolished those hound-jerks!” They happily exclaimed. “That last hound almost got us too! Thank goodness Wendy arrived here before it bit into us or we might be dead right now.”

_No, you would still be alive right now, but in another minute you’d be dead._

“Webber” Wendy said “just in case one of us dies and we don’t have any revival items with us, which will eventually occur, and I don’t get to say this to you, I’d like to say my goodbyes right now.”

Although Webber frowned upon the mention of one of them dying, they eagerly looked at their friend, signaling to Wendy that she should continue.

The little girl gently grabbed one of her best friend’s fluffy hands away from her elbow and held it in her own hand. “You are the reason I smile. You give me a reason to live. You are why I get up in the morning just to face another day of my cruel existence. You make me glad that I’m not a ghost.” Wendy turned to her sister “no offense, Abby.”

Abigail gave a expression back to her that seemed to suggest that she wasn’t bothered by her statement.

“The two of you have such lovely personalities. I don’t understand why you care about me, but somehow you do. If I had the ability to make it so, Abby and I would travel with you forever, and we could craft flower crowns and torture pigs for eternity.”

Wendy’s dream was becoming blurry and faded. The hound bite above her shoulder was starting to hurt less and less. She could feel that she was becoming disconnected from her dream.

“Admittedly” Wendy said “I’m glad I got trapped here, because I’ve met you, my second greatest best friend ever.”

Then, without warning, Webber pulled Wendy into a big, friendly, hug.

Suddenly, the little girl awoke.

She could hear the annoyingly loud sound of baying hounds.

Abigail and Wendy exchanged looks of fear.

 _Uh oh,_ the small ten-year-old thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be a bit of a wait 'cause I haven't finished writing it. I don't got much to say in this note slide. I suppose I should remind everybody that in this fanfic Wendy and Webber are friends before crushes. I just want to make that perfectly clear. So all that heartfelt stuff I just wrote Wendy as saying is entirely out of friendship.
> 
> Okay, welp, bye-bye, have an awesome week, and remember to eat your veggies!


	17. Chapter 17 - Murder In the Mornin’ - Day 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't think there's anything that important going on in this chapter. If you want to, I suppose you can skip it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I finally uploaded this chapter! It's not that good, but its ( hopefully ) better than nothing.

After surviving in the constant for so long, the children had learned to immediately be awake and alert if they woke up in a dangerous situation. However, if there had been iPhones or more advanced alarm clocks in the early 20th century, Willow would be the sort of person to hit the snooze button at least three times before she actually got herself up.

“Ugh, hounds suck” Willow grumbled as Wendy half helped and half forced her onto her feet. 

Unfortunately, during a hound attack you don’t have any time to stay in bed.

Webber slid her own backpack off of her back and wrapped some wooden armor around her torso instead. Then she took out her tentacle spike. It was sort of ironic how the tentacle creature that had killed many spiders in the past was now being used by a spider to kill other things.

The arachnid looked over to Wendy. Her friend did not appear to have any armor on, she just had a spear. Webber frowned at that, spears aren’t too strong, they could be easily overpowered. And if she was overpowered, then Wendy would have no armor to protect herself from the hounds.

“Wendy, you’re quite skilled with a tentacle spike” Webber casually stated. I’ll trade you my weapon for yours.”

Her friend shook her head, and in a monotone voice replied “your offer is kind, but as far as murdering hounds goes I have far more experience with killing them with the aid of a spear rather than with a tentacle spike.”

The young spider began to take off her armor, Wendy noticed this and said “Webber, I’ll be fine, I’m more worried about you than about myself.”

The arachnid concernedly looked at their friend. “Are you completely sure you don’t need the extra protection?”

Wendy nodded “If I did then I would be carrying around some wooden armor.”

With some hesitation, Webber put their armor back on. “Okay, but be careful.”

“I will be. I’m very experienced with killing hounds.”

“Oh really?” Webber said, a playful gleam appearing in her eyes. “Your saying that like you’ve been here longer than I.”

Wendy hummed “Perhaps you have lived in the constant for longer, but I’ve undoubtedly killed more hounds than you.”

The hybrid grinned “well, I guess now’s the time for you to show me your amazing hound killing skills.”

Wendy softly smiled “Yes, it certainly is.”

“Should we make it a competition?” Webber casually asked.

The little girl looked up at her sister “only if Abigail gets to join me in my victory of this contest.

“Cool!” Webber confidently exclaimed “A competition against two humans. I am so going to win.”

Wendy glanced at her sister once more “she shouldn’t be so sure about that, should she?”

Abigail nodded in agreement.

The spider grinned, but her playful expression soon turned a bit more sincere “seriously though, it feels great getting ready to fight alongside my best friends again.”

“Like old times?”

“Yeah, like old times.”

“Oooh Oh ooOoh.”

“The hounds are here!” Willow suddenly shouted.

The childrens’ gazes fell onto a hound that was bounding towards them.

Wendy ran at it first, Webber sprinted behind her, and Abigail trailed them as fast as she could, which unfortunately wasn’t too quick.

Wendy reached the hound first. The beast opened its maw to bite down upon her flesh, but the little girl jumped backwards and dodged its attack. When its jaws closed shut on air rather than a human limb, she jabbed her spear into its head. Then, Wendy used her spear to sling herself over the front of the hound, landing backwards on its steep back as if she was pole vaulting.

 **Okay,** the arachnid thought, **that looked pretty cool, but how effective is it as a fighting move?**

While the beast barked at her, Wendy stabbed the tip of her spear between the hound’s body and one of its back legs. She proceeded to use her small, ten-year-old, strength to pull her weapon towards herself, causing her spear to bend in an arch shape. However, the little girl’s stick spear held strong and the monster’s leg was gruesomely torn away from its socket. The hound barked in immense pain, and made vain attempts to try to get the small child off of it. Unfortunately for the vicious creature, Wendy was skilled at hanging onto a hound’s hill-like back, she had done so several times in her recurring nightmare after all. 

Webber had reached the scene and noticed another hound running at them, so they rushed past it while they held their tentacle spike sort of horizontally. The position that the little spider girl held her weapon in allowed her tentacle spike’s previously white, now purple’s spikes to dig into the monster’s flesh. The small arachnid left a long, bloody, and deep gash in its side that had managed to slice through the corner the hound’s mouth. The yelping hound turned towards the baring its sharp teeth. Webber could see that half of its chewing bones were pearly white, and the other half were a mix between white and the purple coloring of hound blood.

Webber found herself grinning. Moments of battle tended to make her quite happy. It’s a spider thing.

Without hesitation, she attempted to wack her tentacle spike onto the hound’s skull. However, the creature somewhat dodged the attack. This caused her weapon to only smack into its large, and frankly goofy, snout. The hound proceeded to shove Webber to the ground, one of its paws was pressing down onto the left side of her chest, the other paw was restraining her upper right arm. So, using her left arm, the arachnid tried to reach for and yank out her weapon from the hound’s muzzle. However, as she reached for it, the hound tried to bite her hand. Luckily, Webber managed to pull her hand away before the powerful creature could bite down upon her flesh. The beast on top of her opened its maw once more. But, instead of wincing in preparation for the pain that it would inflict, she used her left hand to smack the side of the monster’s face. It once again turned its jaws towards her hand and tried to bite the limb again, but Webber pulled her hand away just in time. The action was saving her from the pain of getting her flesh ripped from her bones, so she tried it again. This time managing to barely dodge the hound’s attack on her arm.

 **But,** the young spider thought, **what’s the point of buying some more time? Not to sound like Wendy, but in the end this hound is going to kill us anyways. We can’t keep smacking it forever.**

Suddenly, without any sort of warning, the human side took entire control of their body and screamed in a British accent “HELP!”

Then, he pulled the spider back into control and retreated back into their mind because he was a terrible fighter.

Right after asking for assistance, they heard two familiar voices yell their way.

“oOOoOH OOH oH!”

“I’m Coming!”

**Huh, I’ve definitely gotten used to not asking for help, I totally forgot we could do that. Anyways, smart idea.**

The monster opened its maw again, so she smacked it once more, but this time it was prepared for her movements. The hound’s jaws shut close just a hair away from the tips of Webber’s claws. Then, it opened up its towering mouth once more.

Suddenly, a little ghost attacked its uninjured side, distracting the hound from the nearly defenseless arachnid. 

_Yes! Abby! Thank goodness you were nearby!_

Wendy trailed after her sibling, arriving at the scene moments later. She aimed her spear at the monster’s front legs. Then, she impaled its left foot with excellent precision. Before she yanked her weapon out of it, she kicked its other front leg harshly at its kneecap. Abigail slightly winced as she heard a cracking sound followed by the leg bending in a direction it most certainly shouldn’t be bending in. While the hound howled in pain, Wendy pulled her spear out of its left foot and dragged Webber away from the beast.

The little arachnid stood herself up as Wendy said in a serious, monotone, and slightly frustrated voice “I’ll go get your tentacle spike. Stay here and don’t die.”

“Okay” responded with a look of surprise and appreciation on her face. The little arachnid was impressed with her best friends’ fighting moves…and she was a bit embarrassed that her battle with the hound had gone quite terribly. Maybe the twins would win their little competition.

The arachnid’s eyes caught onto something speeding towards Wendy in the distance. It was, of course, another hound.

The twins seemed to see it too because Webber noticed the pair looking at it. Wendy suddenly turned her head around to face Webber and spoke loudly enough for the spider to hear her amongst the barking hounds “grab this tentacle spike,” she swiftly waved to Webber’s weapon in the air “use my armor as a ramp, and jump on it!”

 _Wait what?! Can you do that?!_ The human boy asked.

 **Hopefully.** The spider girl responded.

Webber only hesitated for a moment before she tried to follow Wendy’s instructions. She ran towards her friend who was committing the final blows to her previous attacker. The little spider grabbed her weapon out of Wendy’s hand and used her friend’s back and her wooden armor as a ramp to jump into the air. As she was falling back down towards the ground again, a cracking noise split through the air. Upon entirely landing, Webber discovered that her tentacle spike had slammed perfectly into the approaching hound’s curved skull, causing it to go unconscious. It seemed that her timing had been just right too. If she had been a second too late then the hound would’ve attacked Wendy, and if they were a second too early then they wouldn’t have gotten the nice jumping edge over their opponent.

“Hey!” A familiar voice suddenly yelled “a little help over here?”

All three of the children’s heads shot towards Willow. 

The pigtailed woman was fending off a winter hound and a regular hound with a mining pick ( although I didn’t find a way to incorporate this information into the chapter, I’d like to think that her spear broke pretty early on in the fight ).

The children sped towards the hounds. Webber ran towards the regular hound and jumped on top of its back, pulling out a nearly destroyed spear from her pocket in the process. And, with impressive precision, Webber stabbed her spear through the beast’s white eye. The orb split in half as the spear pushed deeply into it. The sharp piece of flint poked through its eye socket and roughly slid into the left side of its cranium and out the right side where the bloody tip of the spear jutted out through its neck. And just to make sure it was good and dead, the spider girl grabbed the head and but of her spear and pulled it towards them. Accompanied by the sound of the hound’s skull being broken, chunks of purple hound brain flew into the air and got stuck in her matted spider fur. However, this was alright because she, like her fellow spiders, enjoyed the smell of blood.

“HOLY PAJAMAS!” Willow yelled. The young woman enjoyed fires, arson, and teddy bears, not unnecessarily brutal murders of hounds.

That was when Webber realized that Willow was somewhat new to the constant, because if she had been there as long as they or the twins had, she would’ve gotten desensitized to the negative aspects of blood and killing a long time ago. Then again, her human side was still a bit squeamish around blood, and mildly horrified about murder when it came to other creatures. However, the little boy certainly had no issue with seeing terrible injuries on himself…

Less than a minute before this, Wendy had stabbed her spear into the blue hound’s behind in the hopes of impaling the mutt. She did this with success, the tip of her weapon jabbed itself through the beast’s behind and poked out of the center of its throat. Then, Wendy attempted to pull her spear out of the hound. It didn’t budge. The little girl looked down at the part of her spear that had come into contact with the monster’s flesh. Followed by a curse under her breath, Wendy saw that the stick of her weapon was now stuck to the hound’s back because of the ice that was now coating it.

So, she was now defenseless and next to a vicious blue hound that was probably very angry at her.

 _Wonderful, just wonderful._ Wendy sarcastically thought to herself.

The impaled blue hound painfully turned away from Willow and looked at the little girl. It’s flesh, bones, and muscles were are grinding against the spear lodged inside of it as the monster moved.

Fortunately, Wendy was not alone. And although Webber was too busy…pushing a spear into a hound’s head, and Willow was too preoccupied with spectating the gory show Webber was putting on, Abigail was completely available to help Wendy. So, that’s what the little specter did.

Several purple gashes appeared on the blue furred hound, but it didn’t let its eyes stop following the child in red.   
Soon, its feet joined Its eyes in following the young, blonde-haired girl because she was now running full speed away from it.

You might think that our protagonist, Wendy, would be able to easily run away from the hulking mass of monster meat and snow due to the mammal having a weapon impaled in its chest. Sadly, you would be mistaken, because unlike a small kid in Mary Janes, blue hounds were made for running atop winter’s snow. So, both of the dangerous creatures ran at about the same speed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a slow enough speed for Abigail to catch up to Wendy’s pursuer.

Upon seeing the scene that Wendy was in, Willow did something violent ( but certainly not a violent as Webber ).

While she shoved her pickaxe into one of her pockets, Willow retrieved a long scepter with a dazzling red gem atop it from her other pocket.

“Hey, Wendy! Lead it to me!”

Without saying a word, Wendy ran at Willow. The blue hound chased right after her, slightly slowed down by the weapon sticking out of its throat. When Wendy had almost reached Willow, she jumped towards the arsonist. The young woman easily caught her, quickly aimed her fire staff at the blue hound, and fired.

A fireball flew out from its red gem and it speedily crashed right into the wintery beast.

The mammal could feel its insides burn up. Its organs and flesh became dry, cracked, and the color of slightly reddish charcoal. And somewhere in that monster, an icy blue gem shattered, releasing a large puff of coldness into the air. The low temperature nearly froze the blue hound’s dead body into an ice cube.

For a few moments everyone went silent. But this silence was not created out of surprise, fear, or drama, it was done because nobody quite knew what to say. Except for Webber, both sides of them were having an interesting conversation.

**Okay, so there’s two options here. One, she activated the fire staff trap. And two, she actually crafted it. The arachnid noted.**

_Well, activation of trap results in lots of rain, and for the time that we’ve been here there’s been no rain. Therefore, if she activated the trap, she did it a while ago. Which means she’s just carrying it around because she wants to, I suppose._

**But the other option means that she likes fire staffs.**

_Both options seem to suggest that._

**How? They’re terrible weapons!**

_I’m not saying that I don’t agree with you, but maybe she just has an abnormal fighting style._

**I’m going to ask her about it.**

_Okay, have fun._

“Alright, Willow,” Webber’s spider half said. “Why are you carrying a fire staff around with you?”

Willow shrugged “because I’m awesome.”

For a couple seconds Webber didn’t know how to respond to her statement, but the arachnid eventually said “But fire staffs aren’t good weapons. If you’re not careful you could accidentally set a forest on fire.”

_Maybe she is careful._

“I mean, I’m definitely not against setting a forest on fire.”

_Nevermind._

Then, Wendy-who was still being held by Willow-whispered something in the arsonist’s ear.

After the little girl was done with her whispers, Willow looked back at Webber. “But” the young woman noted “from now on I will refrain from using my fire staff in forests with spiders in them.”

After saying this, Willow turned towards Wendy and whispered a little loudly “do I really have to do that?”

The little girl gave the arsonist a stern look.

“Ugh, fine” Willow grumbled with the roll of her eyes.

Webber smirked, Wendy knew them too well.

**Still though, liking fire staves is pretty odd.**

_I don’t think we should call what she enjoys odd…_

**I know, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.**

While the Webbers we conversing, Wendy whispered into Willow’s ear.

“So, two things. One, that’s their spider side. And two, put me down or I will tear your piggy-tails off of your skull.”

“Okay okay! Yeesh!” Willow said as she gently plopped Wendy onto the floor.

Then, Willow looked back at Webber.

_Huh, so that’s the spider? I guess her voice is way more scratchy. Willow thought to herself._

The young woman’s head once again swiveled to Wendy “should I introduce myself?”

“I don’t know,” Wendy replied in a monotone voice and a blank expression.

“Well, did you introduce yourself to her when you first met her?”

“No.”

“So, I don’t introduce myself to her.”

“The first time I met her was different, and ought not to be used as a precedent for future events.”

“I have no idea what the word precedent means. But, why was the first time you met her like?”

Before Wendy could answer her, Webber snuck up behind them and bluntly responded “I tried to kill her. Luckily, I failed at that.”

Willow did a facepalm and grumbled “where does Maxwell get these kids?” Before walking back to their temporary camp for the night.

_Aww, she didn’t wait for you to introduce yourself._

**Well I did just tell her that I attempted murder on her own species…**

_But still! Manners!_

Webber rolled her eyes, looked at the twins and said “I admit, I underestimated you two. I dare say you’ve won our competition.”

The sisters exchanged looks of confidence and satisfaction.

“I dare say you’re right.”

“OooOoh OooOoh Ooh oh!”

Webber chuckled “both of you have definitely improved you’re fighting skills since I’ve last seen you. Congrats.”

“We’ve been separated for a long time,” Wendy pointed out. “It would be odd if my ability to battle didn’t improve.”

“Okay, fair enough” Webber said. Then, they looked back at Willow who was shoving various supplies into different back packs. “We should probably help her pack up our stuff. It would be good to get to her base before sundown.”

Wendy stated “This coming sundown is just a reminder of how many other sunsets we will be forced to endure before death takes pity upon us and rips our souls from our bodies.

“That’s never going to happen, we’ll live for eternity.”

“I know. That’s what makes it so horrid. The ability to truly die is a basic human right that has been ripped from us.”

“Hey!” Willow suddenly called over to the three friends. “Breakfast isn’t gonna eat itself!”

After half a day of traveling, explaining to Webber their weird flood postern situation, and Willow complaining about how cold it was, the group finally reached Willow and Wilson’s base.

“And you made that in less than two seasons?!” Webber’s spider side gawked.

“Yup,” Willow proudly answered.

“And I thought that our base was pretty good…”

“Most of it was Wilson. He’s like really good at building bases. Not as good as Ms.Wickerbottom, but he’s still pretty talented” Willow admitted.

“Well, I’ll introduce us to that Wilson guy and-“

Wendy spoke up “it might be wise for Willow to talk to Wilson first and explain to him what you look like. We don’t know how Wilson would react upon seeing you.”

“I’d be cool with doing that” Willow noted.

“I guess call us down or something when you’ve gotten him ready” Webber said.

Willow nodded in agreement and began to walk towards her base.

When the young woman was nearly at her camp’s entrance, Webber said “Abby, Wendy, I think I have an idea on how we should pass the time.”

“Oooh OoOh ooOoOh oh?” Abigail asked.

“Does it involve murder or the destruction of burial sites?”

“Nope! But I’ll show both of you what it is if Wendy turns around.”

With a look of slight suspicion, Wendy shuffled her feet to face away from her best friend.

Webber paused for a couple of seconds. Their confident posture changed into a bit more of a slouch. A sweeter and more timid expression formed on their face. Although the spider had not entirely switched to her human side, she had combined with him to share control of their body. After all, the human deserved to experience this too. The hybrid waved for Abigail to come towards them. Then, they bent down and scooped up some snow, which they quietly padded into a snow ball.

They looked up at their ghost friend and watched as realization dawned on her face before changing into a mischievous expression.

Upon seeing that Abigail approved of the idea, Webber launched their singular snowball at the back of Wendy’s head.

“Webber!”

The little ghost and the hybrid giggled whilst they ran into the nearby forest.

“Wendyyyy! Wendyyyy! We know you’re here somewhere!” Webber called, tossing their snowball threateningly into the air.

Looking back behind them at Abigail, the hybrid worriedly whispered “are you sure we’re not going too hard on her? She might not actually want to continue our snowball fight if she’s hiding from us.”

Abigail shook her head in disagreement “OoOooh OOoh ooOooh.”

“Are you super-duper sure?”

Abigail confidently nodded.

“If you say so…”

Webber resumed their repeated tossing of their snowball.

“Wendy, we’re gonna find you! Whether you want us to or not!”

The hybrid only had to walk a few more steps forwards before a sphere of snow sailed towards their best friend and them.

…And it entirely missed the pair/trio.

During the entirety of their ten minute battle, Wendy had shown just how terrible she was at throwing snowballs. Usually Wendy had no problem with her aim, she could easily shoot darts, use boomerangs, and pelt rocks at small animals, but it seemed that she was just genuinely terrible at specifically throwing snowballs. It might’ve been their spherical shape, or the pure amount of coldness they could provide to uncovered hands. She just had no skills with firing the snow-sphered ammo.

Webber and Abigail rushed in the direction where their best friend had tried to throw the snow sphere at them. In the distance, they saw a pale, huddled up mass with long yellow hair. She was wearing a puffy vest and a beefalo hat. It must’ve been Wendy.

When Webber and Abigail were only a few yards away from the little girl, Webber gently tossed a ball at her. Wendy didn’t even try to move or swat it away.

**_Uh-oh. She’s surely mad at us._ **

Then, Abigail said “ooh oooOoh Ooh oOOoOh Oh.”

The young specter floated over to Wendy and turned a light red shade before stricking the girl.

Webber gasped “ABBY!”

But, rather than crimson blood pouring out from her wounds, snow came out.

Abigail looked back at them, waiting for their brain to catch up with their sight.

“Wait, umm…never mind.”

As Abigail had violently pointed out it wasn’t Wendy. The huddled up mass was simply a lump of snow with yellow grass as hair and Wendy’s winter clothes on.

Webber walked over to Abigail and the now destroyed snow-person.

“…We can’t believe we didn’t immediately realize that it wasn’t Wendy.”

“OooOh ooh.”

The hybrid looked up at their ghostly friend “but why would she make a decoy of herself? We mean, this is a snowball fight. It isn’t a snow-person building conte-“

Before Webber could finish their sentence, and avalanche of snowballs fell atop both them and Abigail.

The spheres of snow passed right through the little ghost girl. However, since they were alive, Webber was buried in the balled-up snow. Luckily for them, they found their head to be in an air pocket in the mass of soft winter-spawn. Nevertheless, their entire body shivered at the low temperature. Spider fur certainly wasn’t very warm.

Slowly, but surely, Webber clawed their way out of the large mass of balled snow around them. It was like being at the bottom of a ball pit filled with cold, somewhat melty, and fragile balls. Eventually, their furry black head came above the snow and they could see the graces of gray cloudy sky above them.

“Do you accept defeat, Webber?” The familiar voice of a little girl asked.

The hybrid grumbled “Yeah. We do” they responded with chattering teeth.

“Good” the other child said in a monotone voice.

As the hybrid climbed out of the impressively large amount of snowballs they were buried in, Webber asked “how did you do that?”

“How did I make a ton of snow balls and then fling them onto you like how life makes a bunch of problems and shoves them onto us?”

Webber walked towards Wendy, who was sitting on the snowy ground “yeah.”

Wendy shrugged “I suppose I’m just quite skilled at quickly making orbs of snow. After I made enough, I built a snow person as a distraction. I carried my large amount of snowballs in my skirt” she demonstrated this by picking up the front part of the bottom her skirt like it was a bag. “Then, I climbed up this tree” Wendy tapped the tree that her snow imposter had been resting against. “All I had to do then was to lure you over here, release the edges of my skirt, and unleash my final attack in our war of snow.”

A few seconds passed by before Wendy said “I also have a question.”

“What is it?”

“What exactly are you doing?”

Currently, the shivering Webber was half hugging Wendy and half cozying up to her side.

“We’re trying to get warmer.”

“You’re cold?”

Webber giggled “of course we’re cold! We’re in winter, we’re pretty much naked, and we were just buried alive in snow.”

Wendy quickly frowned, stood up, and offered her hand to her best friend “We need to get you to Willow’s base immediately.”

The hybrid frowned too and looked between both of the twins “why?”

“As it turns out, if you stay in the cold too long, you can die” Wendy explained. Then, she grabbed Webber’s hand and forcefully pulled them to their feet before tossing them her yellow thermal stone.

“Umm…we know that…and we also know that we just need a few seconds to warm up, that’s all.”

Wendy went to the deceased snow-person and shoved her beefalo hat back on her head. Afterwards, she grabbed her puffy vest and began to put it on Webber.

The hybrid felt their face warm and they nervously said “n-no we can put that on.”

“Well do it quickly, we don’t have much time left” The girl stated as she began to drag Webber towards Willow’s camp.

Abigail rolled her eyes. They had hours before Webber would freeze to death. They were fine, Wendy was just overreacting.

“We don’t need to go back just yet. Besides, Willow might not be done with talking to Wilson yet” Webber tried to explain.

Wendy looked back at her friend “we ought not take any chances on either of our lives. We don’t have the freedom to hop from island to island. Staying on the same island for a lengthened period of time is very dangerous, and I refuse to let such danger separate us from each other. Not again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this fan-fic up to date you'll know that I had a long hiatus because of a ton of schoolwork. So, expect more hiatuses, I suppose. The next chapter will most likely be uploaded on winter break ( which I think marks the anniversary of when I began to write this story ).
> 
> You know, its kind've weird how before I even uploaded the first chapter of this story I had already made around eighteen chapters. But, I never actually upload those chapters since most of them are either really bad, or they interfere with the odd timeline I've set up.
> 
> Well, have a fantastic rest of your day! I'm going to take a nap!
> 
> ( Also, please note that as of December 11th the next chapter is mostly done. Unfortunately, it's going to be a shorter chapter than usual ).


	18. Chapter 18 - Some Questions, A Present, A Flare, And A Whole Lot Of Dialogue - Day 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't need trigger warnings and don't want to be spoiled, then I suggest you don't read anything below.
> 
> Trigger Warnings:
> 
> -Explosions  
> -Firework accidents  
> -Talking about dead things

( If you need to see trigger warnings, please look at the notes above ).

“I have so many questions!” Wilson excitedly exclaimed.

The sun shone overhead, bringing light down upon a decently-sized base. Webber, who had recently been provided with a warm thermal stone, was relaxing near the camp’s firepit. Willow and the twins were near the base’s chests, communicating ideas in a blur of words that were inconsequential to their, or your, existence. 

Knowing that her headmate would find it less than enjoyable to be near a stranger, specifically a human one, Webber’s spider side had come out entirely to meet Wilson. However, despite the pair’s initial fears, Wilson seemed to be harmless, and was so excited to ask her questions about the anatomy of arachnids, that when she and the twins had arrived at the very impressive base, Wilson had been standing at the entryway holding a pen and some paper with the same preparedness of a fighter holding a weapon and a shield in anticipation for a brawl.

“Okay! So, first one!” Wilson giddily said, writing something down on a loose handful of papyrus. “Are the spiders here venomous?” The scientist asked “And if not, then why do they have a venom gland?”

Webber shrugged “I don’t know.”

Wilson quickly jotted that down in his papyrus notes. Then, his head whipped upwards again, and he enthusiastically asked “how can you tell if a spider is a male or a female.”

“Female spiders are entirely black, like the spider queen, and males have neon stripes” Webber answered.

“Okay, that’s what I thought,” Wilson noted before scribbling that down too. “How can you tell the gender of cave spiders then?”

“The human and I tried asking them a few times. They were…confused. The thing is, they can all make themselves lay eggs. Like, they don’t need help from other spiders to do it. A spider from the caves that has never met another spider before could still lay eggs.

“Ah, they can reproduce asexually then! Fascinating!”

Webber shrugged “I guess. I mean, I don’t know what ‘asexually’ is.”

Wilson nodded, but didn’t seem to get the idea that he was supposed to respond back with the definition of asexually. 

Perhaps the humans were correct, Wilson didn’t have the best understanding of how a conversation was supposed to work. But that was alright, Webber knew that she too had little understanding of social rules while she was learning how to talk to the twins.

“Just to confirm,” Wilson questioned, pointing his feathery pencil at Webber “you can talk to other spiders, right?”

“Well duh.”

“So how advanced is your language?”

Webber looked at the funky haired man in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Does it have words like human languages, or is it as primitive as a dogs form of communication.”

“It’s like human languages,” Webber said. She was a bit offended that Wilson had considered her language to be as simple as a dog’s language. Just because spiders weren’t humanoid shaped it didn’t mean they weren’t intelligent. “There’s words and phrases, even grammar rules.”

“Wow.” Wilson said in childlike amazement “how interesting! How do you say hello in your language?”

Webber made two quick clicks of her teeth before letting out a small hissy noise from the back of her throat.

Instead of Wilson immediately jotting this down in his notes, he tried to imitate Webber by clacking his teeth twice and hissing a bit.

Webber nodded, slightly impressed “good enough. It might pass as a hello.”

Wilson’s already wide smile grew a tad larger at that. With unhindered cheer, he focused his attention back to his notes and went to wright down how to say hello in her language. However, half way through writing this he jerked his head up to look at the arachnid child again.

“If I’m not mistaken, Maxwell created spiders. Does that mean he came up with your language too?”

“Probably,” Webber responded with a small shrug “English is really parallel to the arachnid language. Their’s a lot of direct translations.”

Wilson happily wrote this down too onto one of his many pieces of papyrus.

Suddenly, both Wilson and Webber heard a familiar voice above them “Hey you two or three or whatever.”

From the comfort of some log seats, Webber and Wilson looked up to see Willow.

The young woman continued “So me and Wendy are gonna try to find a koalefant. Do you guys wanna join us?”

“Not really,” Wilson replied. The scientist was far more interested in getting back to his data gathering.

“Wrong answer,” Willow said as she tossed a spear to Wilson, which he didn’t successfully catch.

Then, Willow looked at Webber expectantly. Without saying a word, the young spider nodded and stood up before reaching into her pocket to retrieve her spear.

“Great. Let’s get going,” Willow said.

The group hadn’t been traveling long at all, at most a minute, and most of this time was spent on deciding who would walk with who, and where they would walk. It was sort of like deciding where everyone should sit in a car. Luckily, they came to a simple conclusion. Willow and Wilson travelled together in the front of the bunch. Since they were in the head of their group, the pair would be doing most of the searching for koalefant tracks, despite their lack of skill at it in comparison to their younger base members. Both Wilson and Willow were close enough to Webber and the twins to be able to see them, but not close enough to easily be able to pick up on each other’s conversations.

“Sorry to interrupt you and Webber’s conversation,” Willow said “but, ya know, we’ve got more important stuff to do than ask her questions”

“It’s alright” Wilson replied “I can just ask him when we get back to base. Maybe after we’re done with dinner.” The scientist looked behind him at the spider in question. Logically he knew that it would be smarter to ask him a later time of the day, but he was just itching with excitement at the prospect of collecting more data about arachnids from him.

“You mean her, right?” Willow asked.

Wilson turned his attention back to Willow. “Hm? Oh. Yes, yes, I meant her.”

A few moments of silence passed between the two adults before Willow offhandedly commented “Of course, Webber could always die before you get to ask her a bunch of questions.”

With slight amusement, Wilson pointed out “you sounded like Wendy when you said that.”

Willow opened her mouth to speak, but paused to think about what she had said. “Huh,” Willow noted “that did kinda sound like Wendy.” The young woman gave out a small smirk “I guess its because I’ve been spending so much time babysitting her.”

Wilson said “I don’t know if I’d call it ‘babysitting,’ she seems to be quite the capable little kid, you might as well leave her to her own devices.”

Willow raised one of her eyebrows at the strange-haired man “she’s nearly frozen to death _two times_ ,” Willow held up two fingers for emphasis“ and the first time she didn’t even realize it! Leaving her to ‘her own devices’ does _not_ have good results.”

“Perhaps” Wilson responded, but then he chuckled “remember that one time I left you to your own devices while you were in the caves? I came back to find nine shadow splumonkeys chasing you.”

A red blush of embarrassment grew on Willow’s normally pale cheeks.

The scientist laughed some more and continued the story by saying “and I know that profanity shouldn’t be funny, but you were cursing so much! It was hilarious!”

Willow muttered something under her breath, but ultimately waited for Wilson’s laughter to die down, which it eventually did.

Upon the demise of Wilson giggles, he asked Willow “but just to make sure, you do use less profanity around the children, right?”

Willow rolled her eyes, but answered anyways “I try to reel it in,” the young woman shrugged “sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. But at this point I think the twins have heard me curse like a bajillion times now.”

Wilson looked at Willow in confusion, “How much is a bajillion? I admit, they never taught me that number in calculus.”

“A bajillion is like five times.”

“Hmm,” Wilson hummed. “That’s good to know.”

Meanwhile, behind the two black-haired adults were three children who had also started up a conversation.

Webber’s eight white eyes curiously stared at his best friends. “Is it a decapitated head?”

The twins simultaneously shook their heads.

“A dead rabbit?” Webber squeamishly asked.

The two girls shook their heads again.

Webber paused for a few moments in thought “…it is something you killed though, right?”

The sisters exchanged knowing looks. “We did loot it off of something dead, but it’s not apart of our victim’s body.”

This puzzled the young boy, resulting in him taking some more time to ponder about this ‘present’ his friends were giving him.

“Just to make sure, this gift _is_ meant specifically for me, right?”

Both girls nodded before Wendy clarified “your spider side would be uninterested in this gift. This is something personal to your history on Earth.”

Webber frowned as his brain tried to think of what Wendy could possibly be talking about in reference to his past. Small images of bloody cloths, broken furniture, and empty bottles of whiskey flashed through his mind.

Noticing Webber’s lack of guesses, Wendy looked down and rummaging through her pockets while she monotony said “If you can’t think of anything, I can just present it to you.”

“Okay” The little British boy nervously responded, trying to ignore his unpleasant thoughts.

Wendy’s small hand felt something fuzzy and soft. The little girl let her tiny fingers clasp around it; however, before yanking it out of her pocket, Wendy said “Webber, close your eyes.”

Webber did so, rolling his furry lids over his eight pure white face orbs “are you going to throw a snowball at me?”

Wendy softly smiled “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

Webber quietly mumbled “oh no”, which was a statement that was followed by a small, echoey giggle from Abigail.

Wendy first grabbed they young boy’s beefalo hat by one of its horns and shoved it into one of her friend’s fleshy pockets. Afterwards, she raised the item she had produced from one of her own pockets into the air like she was putting an ornament atop a tree, then she plopped the object on top of Webber’s head.

Her companion looked confused as he turned his head to her and asked “am I allowed to open my eyes now?”

“Yes.”

Webber did so, but then asked “Can I,” however, rather than finish his sentence, the boy pointed to the top of his head, a gesture which suggested that he wanted to see what had been placed upon his soft cranium.

“Yes.”

With both worry and reluctance, Webber nervously moved the item off of his head. However, when his eyes met with the object he was holding, the little boy gasped in joyful surprise.

Like comfy winter socks, his present was made of sown up wool. It was also floppy and disk shaped, giving it an appearance similar to a somewhat flattened chefs hat. However, despite it actually being a hat, it could never pass as a chef’s hat for it was dyed in the colors of Christmas: red and green. Not only that, but a simple, and almost silly, puffball decoration was plopped onto the center of the soft headwear.

Webber examined the item excitedly, flipping it upside down and turning it inside out. With a bright and cheerful smile that was unusual for the overly nervous and fearful boy, he looked at his best friends and stated with an excitement fueled speed “Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!” Then, without warning, he hugged his friends. Or, rather, he hugged Wendy and he held his other hand up in such a way that Abigail and Webber could pretend that they were hugging one another.

Upon freeing his friends from his friendilial embrace, the still smiling Webber exclaimed in surprise “You remember that I told you about my grandpa and his tam o’ shanters! I don’t even remember telling you about that!

Abigail chuckled and Wendy nodded “Not often do you talk with such passion. We certainly couldn’t forget about that.”

Webber gave out a small giggle “they’re silly hats, but they’re also really awesome.”

“We share not your interest and enthusiasm for this item of clothing, but it does make Abby and I happy to see that you enjoy your gift” Wendy noted. Abigail cheerfully nodded in agreement to her sister’s statement.

Before Webber could respond to Wendy, Willow, who was still traveling ahead of the three children, yelled at them “Hey! Me and Wilson think that it’s a good idea to split up! If you find a koalefant, use a flare!” Then, Wilson not-so-loudly added “And please wait for us this time Wendy!”

Wendy held up her hand in the air and gave them a thumbs up, signaling to the grown ups that she had gotten the message.

Next to her, Webber sighed in relief “Phew. I thought they were going to say something mean.”

Wendy’s typical poker-face expression developed a small hint of curiosity to it, and Abigail’s regularly more-expressionate-than-the-average-person’s expression looked curious too. Fortunately, neither of their curious faces showed any malice in them. It looked like they were genuinely wondering what he was going to say rather than they thought he was a weirdo and were attempting to confirm their beliefs.

“Why would you think that?” Wendy asked.

Webber shrugged “in my opinion, when somebody yells it usually means that they’re mad.”

“Hm” Wendy hummed, thinking about what her friend had just said “I suppose you’re correct.” Whilst Wendy’s facial expression returned to its seemingly emotionlessness, she looked at the adults ahead of her again. The two grown ups were staring expectantly back at her. Wendy murmured a quick “oh” under her breath before looking up at her sister and pointing towards a less dense part of the forest they were traveling in. Abigail nodded and began floating in the direction her sibling had suggested. Wendy proceeded to carefully grab Webber’s clawed hand and lightly pull him along with her after her sister.

Eventually, after a couple hours of traveling, Willow and Wilson hunted down an ice blue koalefant.

Wilson silently watched the wintery blue beast from afar. The large-eared animal looked bored as it slowly wandered through the forest. As far as the scientist could tell, the beast could be as lazy as it wanted to be. Koalefant’s couldn’t starve, so it didn’t need to look for food. Koalefant’s, like every non-human and non-webber creature in the constant, can neither freeze to death from winter nor heat up to death from summer, so there was no need for it to prepare itself for such harsh conditions. It reminded him of something that Wendy had once said. She had told him that the simpler a creature from the constant was, the more its entire existence revolved around them and their choices. This was certainly the case for the koalefant, it wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for Willow and him hunting for it.

Wilson looked behind him at Willow, a hint of guilt sat upon his bearded face. Although the red vested man certainly had a passion for science, he had neither passion for murder, nor a heart that had gotten used to it. “Would you mind sending up a flare, Willow? I’m certain that Wendy will be of great help to us in our attempts to…lay it to rest.”

Already taking the necessary materials out of her pockets, Willow said a quick “sure” before asking if Wilson had a nitre, which is a material the man luckily did have on his person. With haste, Willow separated her grass into two halves. She wrapped one half of her grass around the clump of nitre, causing it to look like she had made an inedible taco. Then, she placed this grass and nitro taco against a twig. Next, using her other half of grass, she quickly wrapped them together. And with an eager grin, Willow finally whipped her lighter out of pocket and flicked it on.

Wilson was just about to remind his basemate to be careful with the flare, but before he could do so, Willow held the small light from her lighter to the firework-like craft.

There was the sound of a loud boom and the orangish reddish colors of a sunset.

Unfortunately, the flare never lifted off the ground.

I suppose Willow should’ve added a fuse to her makeshift firework.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I bet you can guess it, I spent most of my break playing video games and hanging out with family members. So, I definitely apologize for not getting a chapter out earlier. Sorry folks, I just really wasn't in the mood for writing that much during this break.
> 
> As far as the next chapter goes, I have no idea when it'll be released. I'm changing up my school schedule quite a bit, which either means that I'll have more free time than in my last semester ( and therefore more time to write ), or it means that I'll have very little free time like last semester ( and therefore very little time to write ).


	19. Chapter 19 - Some Much Needed Help - Day 32

With a small grunt, she let her pale hands smooth over her pigtails. From what she could feel, they would need to be retied at some point during the day. Perhaps when they all got back to camp and weren’t focused on looking for sucpiscious dirt piles. So far they were unlucky in their search. But that was why they had split it up, covering more ground was always easier that way.

She looked behind her. Her companion was also scanning the winter landscape for the tell-tale heaps of brown against the flat sea of white. The pair had stopped talking a while ago, deciding to focus more of their energy on looking for koalefant tracks.

She couldn’t tell if her interesting looking traveling partner had noticed that she was now staring at them. They didn’t have pupils or irises, so it was hard to determine if their eyes had actually landed on her at some point or not.

If they were actually looking at her right now, they weren’t saying anything about it. Oh, nevermind, their mouth was opening now.

“I AM NOT A DIRT PILE, FLESHING. STOP LOOKING AT ME AND GET BACK TO YOUR WORK.”

She rolled her eyes, but did stop staring at them, allowing her gaze to drift back to the fields of snow around her.

“Yöu may nöt be a dirt pile, but it wöuld take little special effects tö make yöu löok like öne” She commented with a small grin, hoping to get a rise out of her companion.

“I DO NOT LOOK LIKE A DIRT PILE! I AM A ROBOT, A BEING FAR SUPERIOR TO ANY HUMAN OR PILE OF DIRT” the machine argued in sudden anger.

The woman chuckled, it seemed that she had indeed gotten a rise from them. She opened her mouth once more to say something insulting, but before she could utter a word, a loud sound that almost sounded like a gunshot being fired in slow motion, cut through the air.

Both her and the robot’s heads swiveled towards the source of booming noise. What they saw looked to be like a small sunset-a sunset from Earth, not the constant’s dull gray sunsets-however, this miniature sunset didn’t come from the sky, it came from the ground.

She immediately recognized it as being an explosion.

There was only one other person who could’ve caused this fiery boom to occur.

“S**T!” The woman yelled.

“HA HA! THE DUMB FLESHLING HAS FALLEN PRAY TO THE BEEFALO PEN TRAP AGAIN!”

She looked at the robot with fear in her eyes “we didn’t find any töuch stönes this time, did we.” It was less of a question and more of a statement that held out a little hope for the possibility that she was wrong.

The machine’s metal face somehow fell, confirming her thoughts.

Although the unloving artificial intelligence didn’t like their third traveling partner, they did recognize how helpful he was to their survival. The young woman supposed that his death was like losing a powerful weapon to them.

They stood there quietly, watching how the far-away explosion created fires in the nearby trees. The pair were silent at the unexpected, but terrible, event.

“Maybe he was wearing a life giving amulet when it happened,” the woman said, her voice was almost as quiet as a whisper.

“THAT IS UNLIKELY” the robot responded “THE MEATLING IS TOO DUMB TO DO THAT.”

Although the statement was very disrespectful, she didn’t disagree with it. The man certainly wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

Silence ran between them once again. Their minds were trying to mentally process what had just happened.

Earlier that day, the trio had decided to go koalefant hunting. Like usual, the group had decided to split up into two groups. They would’ve split up into three groups but in the past when they had split up and had left her alone to do beefalo hunting, she had tendencies to forget all about the hunt and instead she would get herself wrapped up in a battle with a swarm of frogs or an entire merm village. Walking with somebody helped keep her focused on the task at hand without straying towards anything too dangerous, even though she really _really_ wanted to get into a battle right now. Fights were just too fun. Anyways, today their third traveling companion was hunting alone today, and both the robot and her had simultaneously come to the sorta-spoken conclusion that the big oaf had stumbled into an abandoned beefalo pen and had mistakenly opened the trap chest there, causing piles of gunpowder to spring out at him and almost immediately explode in his face. Unfortunately, when you have even one pile of the constant’s gunpowder blow up right next to you, you don’t make it out alive. However, this wasn’t the first time the man had triggered an explosive beefalo pen trap chest, it was simply the first time it had happened when he didn’t have someone to immediately throw a life giving amulet around his neck.

But still, even after both the robot and her had processed these events, both of them continued to be silent.

The woman noticed that although she was shocked and sad, she wasn’t crying. Was it because she was tough? Maybe, but a true warrior always cried when an ally was lost in battle, albeit usually after they had taken some form of revenge on their ally’s killer. Was it because she and the man weren’t that close? No, it couldn’t have been that. They weren’t best buds or anything, but they still were friends and had made several happy memories together. Was it because she had gotten so used to death in the constant that this didn’t feel that bad? Yeah, that was a large possibility. The constant hardens everyone. You can’t survive for that long without killing something. Whatever the reason was, the young woman was sure that when her shock wore off she’d cry, probably.

Silence still sat between her and the machine. But it was the robot who spoke up first.

“WE NEED TO LOOT THE ORGANIC’S INVENTORY NOW.”

The woman nodded in agreement. Most of the man’s materials had probably been destroyed in the explosion; however, he did have some very useful stuff on him, stuff that was worth enough to walk over to his skeleton just for the small hope that they hadn’t been destroyed in the explosion.

With a heavy sigh, she stepped forwards and jogged towards where they had seen the explosion take place. She could hear the footsteps of something heavy sloshing into snow behind her, signaling to the woman that her robot ally was trailing behind her.

Wendy silently looked at the adult’s corpses. A flare had blown up in Willow and Wilsons faces, causing their face and hands to be a mess of exploded flesh that was now bleeding profusely. They were the sort of wounds that couldn’t be healed with the simple help of some honey poultices. It was sort of like Webbers death, blood everywhere and wounds that she couldn’t heal. The adults would die of blood loss from the explosion.

They were killed by their own flare. It was a pathetic way to die. They deserved to have a better death.

The little girl sighed. It didn’t even really matter anyways. Death is death, it comes for everyone eventually, no matter how much she was attached to them

She’d miss Willow though, that was for sure, she was really nice. She’d miss Wilson too of course, but not that much.

Wendy turned her head to look at her twin sister, she was staring at Willow and Wilson’s bodies too.

“Are you alright?” She asked, prepared to give her sibling any comfort she may need.

Abigail nodded. She looked upset, but not too upset.

“We should get going.”

Abigail nodded in agreement.

Despite this, neither sister made any movement to turn around.

Eventually Wendy asked “should we…” she trialed off before starting again “should we loot their pockets?”

Abigail paused before nodding.

With that, Wendy strode up to Willow’s nearly dead body and began to pull things out of her skirt pockets. Most of the materials were useless to Wendy, but some would be good to have on hand. After removing the contents of Willow’s inventory from her pockets, she moved onto Wilson. Without a doubt, he had more useful things in his inventory than Willlow, also things were so much better organized. His twigs and grass were in the same section of his pocket, and his tools were in another section. It wasn’t like Willow’s where her spear was next to a lighter, some grass, and a bunch of rot. Also, no, Wendy did not know why Willow had a pile of rot in her pocket, and she assumed it was because the woman had neglected to put back some of her inventory items into the chests.

After retrieving the necessary resources from Wilson, Wendy walked back over to Abigail. Her sister was still hovering in the same spot. Her unblinking eyes stared emptily at Willow and Wilson’s dead bodies.

“I’m going to go help Webber, you can follow me if you’d like.” Wendy said, turning around and beginning to walk in the direction the base was in before she turned around again and looked back at her sister “we can bury them once this forest fire is out.”

Abigail nodded, and floated towards Wendy, settling to hover almost protectively over her head. Her pure white ghost eyes looked down at her sibling expectantly.

With one last glance at the adult’s dead bodies, Wendy and Abigail walked and floated back to their base.

Not long after the twins had left, a young woman and a copper-colored robot sped onto the scene with speed and diligence. However, the pounding of their feet on the forest floor came to a sudden halt as they took in the scene before them.

Around the pair were a ring of pine trees painted orange with the light of fire climbing up and down their branches, and before them were two humans covered in red blood and soot. Their flesh was exposed cruelly to the light as crimson liquid flowed down their clothes and hair. Around the two humans was a halo of items, most of which were barely useful.

“…Sö it’s nöt Wölfgang” the woman said, admittedly more surprised than relieved.

“THE FLESH WEAKLINGS APPEAR TO HAVE ALREADY BEEN LOOTED OF THER VALUABLES. WE MUST CONTINUE IN OUR SEARCH FOR A KOALEFANT.”

“Nö” the woman shot the robot a look of rebuke “we’re göing tö be true warriörs and help these peöple out. They’ve nöt becöme skeletöns yet, we can still save them.” The woman said as she quickly crouched down to the most bloody one and gingerly lifted up their very bloody head with her right hand before digging in her pocket for the best healing item she had ever stumbled upon in the constant. She carefully, yet hastily threw this over their head, letting the chain of the amulet rest against the back of their neck.

Then, she pushed her hands into her pockets once more, desperately trying to find another life-giving-amulet in them. Unfortunately it looked like she had only had one of the healing necklaces on her.

“X, please hand me yöur life giving amulet. I knöw yöu’ve göt öne ön yöu,” she looked at the robot with stern and eager eyes.

“WHY SHOULD I?” The robot asked, they clearly cared not for the two nearly dead people in front of them.

“Because these peöple will pröve helpful tö yöu if alive. Wölf and I have been aröund yöu för years and yöu rarely regret sticking by us.”

The machine processed this for a moment before loudly saying “I WILL GIVE YOU MY AMULET ON ONE CONDITION. I DON’T HAVE TO HELP YOU BABYSIT THE FLESHNUBS.”

“Deal” she eagerly said.

The robot tossed her their life-giving amulet. She caught the necklace with ease and pushed it over the almost-corpse’s head in one motion.

The woman pushed herself up from the ground and looked at the two bodies. The one she had put her life-giving amulet on was already healing fairly nicely. Their flesh was unnaturally growing back. It was certainly weird to see flesh being healed so quickly, as if there had been no accident at all.

The young woman shoved her hand into her pocket as she watched someone’s previously destroyed green eye being recreated.

With a quick tug, she pulled out her battle spear. In an attempt to pass by the time, she looked it over, and examined its state. The spear looked like it would break fairly soon, but it had served her well, and had aided her in the death of many beasts. The spear was covered in red, purple, and even some green blood. Its spear head was a bit dulled down too. She decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sharpen it when she got back to camp.

In silence, she slid the weapon back into one of her pockets.

Then, the woman looked back at the two injured people. It seemed that by now the life-giving amulets had healed both adults enough for the robot and her to tell what they looked like. One of them was a young woman, or at least younger looking than her. The other one was a bearded man who had gotten a very _very_ bad haircut that the life giving amulet was currently growing back. She wondered if the two people were siblings, they looked similar, although that could just be because they both had black hair and outfits with matching color schemes. Unfortunately, these matching outfits were now torn and tattered, probably from the beefalo pen trap explosion.

Wait…

This wasn’t from a beefalo pen trap was it?

There wasn’t any beefalo fences on fire or bones of dead beefalo littering the floor. Also, they weren’t in a savannah biome, and she’d only ever seen a beefalo pen trap in a savannah before.

It seemed as though the robot was on the same train of thought because they said “I HAVE ANALYZED THE SITUATION. THE MOST LIKELY CULPRIT OF THE EXPLSOION WAS A GUNPOWDER ACCIDENT-“

“X, dön’t yöu dare say it,” the woman interrupted.

“FLESHLINGS ARE COMPLETE IDIOTS. HAHAHAHAHAH-“

The woman groaned “sömetimes I just want tö punch yöu in yöur metal face.”

“YOU HAVE ONCE AGAIN PROVED HOW MENTALLY INFERIOR YOU ARE TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. IF YOU DID THAT THEN YOUR HAND WOULD HURT SINCE YOUR FLESHBODY IS SO USELESSLY FRAGILE.”

“Yeah, I knöw that. If yöur head wasn’t sö hard I wöuld’ve punched it hundreds öf times already.”

The robot stared at her in silence. She had been around them for long enough to learn that when they did that, they were usually contemplating something.

“IF WE ARE ASSUMING HUNDREDS OF TIMES IS EQUAL TO FIVE-HUNDRED TIMES, THEN YOU WOULD HA VE HAD TO PUNCH ME EVERY T-“

“I was exaggerating, I don’t literally mean I would’ve punched you hundreds of times by now.”

“OH.”

Silence passed between them for a few moments before the robot spoke again.

“EXAGGERATION IS INCORRECT. YOU EXAGGERATE AND I DO NOT, THEREFORE I AM MORE CORRECT AND SUPERIOR THEN YOU.”

The woman sighed, too mentally tired to continue with their argument “yeah buddy, keep thinking that.”

“…I WILL.”

It took only a few more minutes of waiting for the amulet on the young black-haired woman to break. Although her face was still covered in blood and splotches of her own blown off skin, it looked easily healable with some medical materials. But her hands, well…they looked like they would need a second life giving amulet in order for them to be fully functional again. Even though her finger bones were no longer showing, and her fingers didn’t look like they’d be falling off, they were still covered in a lot of blood and torn off chunks of flesh. They definitely needed some bandages in order to stop further bleeding.

The woman grumbled and slung her backpack over her shoulder and grabbed some honey poultices from its depths. It would sting a lot, but it was a good healing item, it’d do the trick. She duck waddled towards the young woman and ever so gently lifted up her hand by her wrist. The unconscious woman’s face scrunched up in pain. That meant that she’d wake up soon. The conscious woman turned her attention back to the girl’s wrist and she carefully wrapped the honey poultices around her blood-splotched fingers. It didn’t take too much touching to wake up the other woman.

“OWWW!” the younger black-pigtailed woman yelled, sitting up quickly. Then, the previously unconscious woman’s green eyes looked unfocusingly at her. “Who the h*** are you?! And stop hurting my hand!”

The other woman who was holding the younger woman’s injured hands simply replied “I’m Wathgrithr, the mighty warriör whö’s trying tö stöp yöur hands fröm bleeding möre.”

“Ohhh” the younger woman grumbled, her face was scrunched up tightly as she tried to deal with the painful feeling in her hands “well that sucks that I woke up, this hurts a whoooole lot.”

Wathgrithr nodded as she wrapped another honeyed bandage around her fingers.

“ _F**kkkkkkkkkkk_ ” the younger woman hissed out like a steaming pot.

“Sö” Wathgrithr started, trying to distract the girl “what’s yöur name?”

“Willow” Willow simply responded.

Before Wathgrithr could try to say another distractor, Willow asked “so what does it mean if my vision’s real blurry?”

Wathgrithr slightly paused in fixing up her hands, but immediately got back to work after the moment had passed “I dön’t knöw, för I am an expert öf battle, nöt öf medical supplies” she replied.

“Then I should probably ask Wilson about it” Willow said before looking around “wait, where is h-OH MY GOSH! COOL! WHAT IS THAT?!”

Wathgrithr didn’t need to turn around to know what she was staring at, neither did she have to respond.

“I’M AN AUTOMATION YOU INFERIOR ORGANIC.”

Willow gasped in astonishment “you sound like one of those awesome killer robots! Do you kill people?” She asked before her excited expression turned into fear “don’t kill me though, Wilson’s a lot tastier than me.”

Wathgrithr could practically hear the robot’s already inflated ego swell a little bit more.

“I _AM_ A KILLER ROBOT! AND I COULD KILL ALL OF YOU IF YOU FLESHLINGS WEREN’T USEFUL SLAVES.”

Wathgrithr frowned at the robot’s statement before saying “a true warriör döesn’t take slaves. Also,” She said turning her head to the machine “yöu cöuldn’t kill all öf us, especially if Wölfgang was here. And, yöu dön’t have any slaves.”

“Aw, you look like you two get along great” Willow flatly commented, before Wathgrithr placed another stinging poultice to one of her fingers, making Willow’s face scrunch up once more in pain.

The machine’s face fell “WE DO NOT.”

“Sarcasm, X, sarcasm” Wathgrithr said, her attention having turned back to Willow’s now mostly bandaged hands.

“Oh, so that’s the cool robot’s name, X!” Willow exclaimed.

“Nö,” Wathgrithr explained “that’s just a nickname för use in a heated battle where calling för sömebödy’s full name can cöst preciöus time and warriör’s lives. Their name is WX-78.”

Willow was about to speak once more before WX-78 said “WE NEED TO EVACUATE THE AREA, THE FIRE MIGHT CUT OFF OUR EXITS.”

Wathgrithr looked up. The machine was right, the fire was quickly spreading. Luckily, the area they were standing in way completely clear of debris, aside from the contents of Willow and the other injured person’s inventory which wasn’t close enough to the forest to get set on fire. So, if they stayed in this area during the entire forest fire, they’d be fine. However, it would be good to get back to base before the afternoon faded into nighttime, which it looked like it would soon.

“Yeah, yöu’re right,” the warrior woman stated.

“ALSO, MY SUPERIOR NOISE DETECTORS ARE PICKING UP THE SOUNDS OF A TRUMPETING KOALEFANT. I’M GOING TO BRING IT BACK TO BASE.”

“What?” Wathgrithr asked, confused “that’s not how you find koalefants.

“I mean, that’s me and Wilson’s koalefant. So if you’re going to kill it, we’re taking its trunk and at least half of its meat.”

“I’M NOT GOING TO KILL IT JUST YET, I’M GOING TO WAIT UNTIL I’M HUNGRY TO KILL IT. THAT WAY I GET POOP AND NON-SPOILED MEAT” WX-78 replied as they swung their back pack onto their shoulders.

“Huh,” Willow thoughtfully commented “that’s a good strategy, _but_ me and Wilson _do_ need its trunk, we have a new member of our base, and they don’t have a lot of winter supplies with them.”

Wigfrid frowned, finishing the last wraps of the honey poultice on Willow’s hands before saying “is that whö löoted yöur pöckets beföre we arrived?”

“What?” The young woman asked in confusion, turning her head from the now leaving WX-78 to the woman beside her.

Wathgrithr motioned to all of her rummaged inventory items laying out around her.

Willow frowned and her brow furrowed in contemplation as she thought. Wathgrithr could see the invisible gears turning in her head. After a few more moments Willow adorned a face of despair. “Yeah…I think…I think so…I guess we don’t have to kill the koalefant early.”

Wathgrithr frowned as she thought about what the other woman could’ve been thinking. But shook it off knowing that it wasn’t honorary for a warrior to intrude upon another’s thoughts.

“Alright Willöw, we need to get göing. I’d öffer yöu a hand, but I think that’d be painful.”

“Yeah, you’re right” Willow agreed, trying to push herself to her feet using purely her legs.

Wathgrithr walked over to Willow’s companion, the strange haired man. She crouched down, and with a grunt she picked him up in a bridal carry.

Willow looked over to her, sadness still twinkling in her bright green eyes “are you carrying him?”

Wathgrithr responded “well yes, he’s still uncönsciöus and a warriör like myself must help thöse in need.”

Willow shook her head as she managed to get to her stumbily feet “you don’t have to do that, he can walk by himself.” Then, the young woman blew in a large breath of air and suddenly yelled “WILSON, WAKE UP!”

The skinny man in Wathgrithr’s arms woke up with a jolt before confusedly saying “what?”

“Wow, everyone but the robot has said ‘what’ once in this conversation. Weird” Willow said, completely ignoring her friend’s confusion.

“Yöu can walk, right?” Wigfrid asked, staring at the man in her arms.

“I’m assuming so,” Wilson said. His eyes were still darting around at everything in puzzlement.

Wathgrithr gently placed Wilson on the ground, letting his feet touch the floor first so that he could stand up. It was as though she was a parent about to teach her baby how to walk.

“Ökay,” Wathgrithr said, looking at the burning forest around her, There was still a small line of trees that the fire had yet to spread to. They could probably escape through there. “We must hurry with the swiftness öf Sleipnir.”

“Wait!” Willow said, sadness still ridden on her face “if think my blurry vision is affecting my ability to properly balance myself.”

Indeed, the woman looked fairly stumbily and off-balance. There was little point in having her run out of a burning forest if she couldn’t even properly run.

Wathgrithr sighed in frustration before running over to the woman and swiftly picking her up in a bridal carry.

Willow awkwardly shifted herself around in the position for a moment, trying to get herself comfortable.

“Your vision is blurry?” Wilson asked, looking over to Willow.

“Yeah, its really bad” she grumbled.

“That döesn’t matter right nöw,” Wathgrithr said as she ran into the fireless part of the woods. She cursed under her breath as the saw some of the trees on the route to their exit were now smoldering

“But it does matter!” Wilson called after them, trying to keep up with Wathgrithr “she could have a concussion!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya'll, so I've got a few things to note about this here chapter. One, this isn't going to be a Wigfrid/Willow or a Wathgrithr/Willow fanfic, sorry to my fellow queer gals ( I'm just saying this because in a one-shot I wrote, I shipped them together ). Two, I'm planning on wrighting Wathgrithr and Wigfrid with a certain disorder that I have, OSSD-1B, you'll figure out what this means eventually, but basically its why I'm calling her Wathgrithr instead of Wigfrid. And three, yeah this chapter might be a fair bit confusing, but don't worry, next chapter I'm going to try and clear up most of the stuff you might be wondering about.
> 
> So when will I update this? I don't know. I'm still trying to get used to school stuff, but right now this doesn't seem to be going much better than when I took virtual school. However, that could change.
> 
> Also, I bet you thought I was wrighting Wendy and Webber at the beginning of this chapter. But I tricked you, you fool! MUAHAHAHA!
> 
> -Anyways, have a lovely Martin Luther King junior Day! And goodbye for now!


	20. If You Were Hoping For A New Chapter, Then Don't Get Excited

Hey ya’ll. So I bet you folks can guess why I haven’t updated this story in a while. The culprit is schoolwork. My life revolves around school. The few times I ain’t working at an assignment, I’m try to get some extra Zs. Honestly, I think virtual school was way better than this. Plus, my unhealthy mental state has been taking up a fair amount of time too. Over the past few months, my mental health has been declining rapidly from a variety of causes: my problematic mother, face-to-face schooling, and a very bad event in my Latin class. It has caused a harmful coping mechanism that I thought I had gotten over to reappear, and it has caused a trauma-disorder of mine get significantly severer as a reaction to the aforementioned Latin incident. It has also caused me to return to a split-household situation to take chances with my father in order to get away from my mother, which has taken up considerable time to adjust back to living with him. I had the next chapter mostly done during the last break; however, as I’ve explained, I’ve had no time to continue working on it. I’m very sorry that I haven’t updated this fan-fiction in a while. I think about this story frequently, and I give you my word that I ain’t dropping this anytime soon. I expect the majority of the next chapters to come out during summer break.

Sorry if I rambled on, but I’d prefer to not leave you folks in the dark as to why you haven’t seen any new chapters. In my opinion, It’s better to be open and honest than to hide the truth with a mask of cheer. Once again, my apologies for not providing ya’ll with new reading material.

Thank you for you patience and understanding,

Lady_With_A_Top_Hat.

P.S. This ‘chapter’ will be deleted when I’m done writing and editing the next one.

**Author's Note:**

> You can check out the progress of the next chapter here.
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DxmK1mkjMXMs9dITu3fZQRpFBklirwpQQErZoNtGbfQ/edit


End file.
